BEIJING: China’s Foreign Ministry has rejected allegations of Chinese espionage linked to Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang’s affair, dismissing them as fabricated and defamatory.
Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun made the remarks on Monday, German news agency dpa reported.
The chief executive of the US chipmaker recently admitted to having had an affair, prompting Nvidia to launch an investigation.
However, the company’s board said it had no reason at present to believe that Nvidia’s trade secrets or US national security had been compromised.
Several media outlets had earlier reported that Huang could have become a target of foreign espionage because he had been in a relationship with a woman whom US security circles suspect was recruited by Chinese intelligence.
China’s state-run newspaper Global Times also dismissed the allegations, saying US media had inflated the matter into an espionage scandal based on a few photographs of a woman with “Asian features” and Nvidia’s efforts to ease trade restrictions on China.
Nvidia is a major supplier of advanced artificial intelligence chips.