Photo: VCG

Following NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's admission of his extramarital affair, some US media outlets have latched onto the episode to hype allegations of a Chinese spy link, which a Chinese expert calls a classic example of presumption of guilt.

Huang on Sunday acknowledged to the board that he had been intimate with a business executive. In a message to the company, Huang apologized, saying, "I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did." He said he took full responsibility for his actions and accepted the resulting criticism.

Regarding the national security concerns raised in news reports, Huang said in the message that he is "committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America's national security."

After Huang released the message, NVIDIA said on Sunday that it was opening an investigation into Huang in light of recent reporting that Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort.

Nvidia's board said that it had "no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised," but that "the board's inquiry will examine all available information." It said Huang "fully supports the review and has committed to cooperating with it."

The independent board members will choose outside counsel to investigate. John Rizzo, a company spokesman, said Huang wouldn't be part of the selection process, The New York Times (NYT) reported.

"Today's news will not slow Nvidia," Rizzo said, adding, "Jensen is committed to continuing to lead Nvidia as CEO without interruption."

In a brief comment to reporters on Sunday evening as he was about to leave Florida, US President Donald Trump defended Huang. Huang is an "honorable guy" and "He has done an amazing job for our country," Trump said, according to media reports.

Although Huang's statement didn't identify the woman involved in the affair, US media nonetheless sought to tie the episode to China, describing her as a "Chinese spy."

The New York Times first reported in October that American intelligence agencies had discovered that Huang had developed a close relationship with a Chinese citizen and chip buyer, who US officials concluded was gathering intelligence for Beijing.

When asked to comment on claims that the woman linked to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who admitted to an extramarital affair on Sunday, works for Chinese intelligence, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that "we have already responded to this. The so-called claim of 'Chinese spies' is completely groundless and is nothing but a smear against China."

With only a few photos of Asian-looking faces and Nvidia's earlier push to relax trade restrictions on China, plus quotes from purported insiders and media speculation, media outlets have hyped a private affair into a narrative of "a female Chinese spy infiltrating a US chip firm," it is a clear case of pre-judgment and presumption of guilt, Shen Yi, director of the International Research Institute of Global Cyberspace Governance at Fudan University, told the Global Times on Monday.

Huang's extramarital affair has no connection to chip manufacturing or the computing power business, nor does it constitute a technological risk; yet the media's deliberate grafting reflects the deep-seated prejudice of some groups in the US toward China.

If the US media continues to follow a preconceived anti-China narrative, it will undermine both its own credibility and normal technological and commercial exchanges, weighing on both China and the US and on global supply chains, the expert said.