US lawmakers summon Nvidia chief Jensen Huang over foreign espionage safeguards

US congressional lawmakers have summoned Jensen Huang, chief executive of chipmaker Nvidia, over concerns about Chinese espionage. They want him to explain the security protocols the company has in place against "foreign adversary espionage." The details come from a Financial Times report republished by Ars Technica.

Nvidia's response

The company says its regional cloud customers receive ordinary business information, not sensitive Nvidia trade secrets, and nothing relevant to national security. It also says Huang is accompanied on his travels by an "outstanding security team."

According to The New York Times, Huang has not received a "defensive briefing," a warning that the intelligence community usually, though not always, gives potential espionage targets. Nvidia says it is confident the US government would have told it if someone were considered a threat to US industry, and that it often receives updates from Washington about people of concern.

Megaspeed and the supply chain

The US has previously scrutinized Megaspeed, founded in 2023 as a spin-off from a Chinese gaming company, over possible chip smuggling, though no charges followed. When Nvidia learned of the US concerns, it carried out its own unannounced on-site inspections at Megaspeed in Singapore. People familiar with the matter say the internal probe found no evidence that its chips were diverted into China.

Nvidia's supply chain has faced growing scrutiny because US export controls have led to more smuggling of its chips. Earlier this year Wally Liaw, a co-founder of Supermicro, one of Nvidia's key supply chain partners, was arrested in the US and charged with smuggling Nvidia chips into China. He denies wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty.