The chipmaker’s board has engaged outside counsel to conduct a review of the conduct of its former chief executive, focusing on whether internal controls were bypassed to violate U.S. trade restrictions. The probe centers on Jensen Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, a suspected operative for Chinese intelligence, and allegations that a network tied to her helped ship roughly 240,000 H100 and H200 GPUs to China. These shipments, which totaled more than $7.5B, were allegedly arranged through overseas intermediaries to circumvent federal export controls. The investigation also explores whether companies connected to this network participated in the nearly $16B funding round for Chinese AI lab DeepSeek.
Huang has retained the law firm Paul Weiss and litigators Melinda Haag and Walter Brown to represent him following his resignation as chief executive. Nvidia maintains it has no evidence that company secrets were compromised, but the board continues to examine if the company properly managed potential conflicts of interest. The legal dispute emerges as the board seeks to determine if the suspected shipments and intelligence ties created regulatory risks for the company’s AI infrastructure business.