China denies spying on Nvidia's Jensen Huang

BEIJING - Beijing said Friday that claims that Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang was the target of a Chinese spy plot were "groundless speculation".

"The report in question is based on groundless speculation and is nothing more than an attempt to smear China," foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a regular briefing, referring to an article in The New York Times.

The report said that US intelligence officials concluded that a Chinese executive linked to Singapore-based data centre company Megaspeed acted as a Chinese intelligence asset funnelling information to Beijing.

The firm was under scrutiny for possibly steering advanced Nvidia AI chips to China, the report said, citing unnamed sources briefed on the investigation.

But the executive Alice Huang -- also known as Huang Le and no relation to Jensen Huang -- developed a close relationship with the Nvidia boss, the New York Times said.

Nvidia said that Megaspeed was like any other regional customer and that it had previously investigated and debunked claims the Singaporean company was smuggling chips to China, the report added.

"Jensen's interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected. Meetings with customers are part of a C.E.O.'s job; Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year," Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo told the newspaper. - AFP