Three House Republican committee chairs asked Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang to appear at a closed-door joint briefing on Nov. 18 about his reported contacts with a Singapore-based cloud executive U.S. officials have tied to Chinese intelligence, Ars Technica, The National and CNBC reported^1,2,3.

The letter is dated Wednesday and was made public Thursday^2,3. Signers were House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast of Florida, Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar of Michigan, and the House intelligence chairman, named as Rick Crawford of Arkansas by Ars Technica and CNBC and as Eric Crawford by The National^1,2,3.

The chairs wrote that recent reports raise national security concerns about China's access to sensitive U.S. technology and that they wanted to know the extent of any risk^1,3. They asked Huang to discuss Nvidia's security protocols against foreign adversary espionage and his reported interactions with Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore cloud company that has bought Nvidia chips^1,2,3.

Nvidia rejected the underlying claims and did not say whether Huang would appear^1,2,3. A company spokesperson said meetings with customers are part of a CEO's job and that Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year^1,3.

The same statement said regional cloud customers receive ordinary business information, not sensitive Nvidia trade secrets, and zero information relevant to national security^1,2,3. Nvidia said it was confident the U.S. government would let it know if it believed a person was a threat to American industry^1,2,3.

Ars Technica reported that U.S. officials had previously scrutinized Megaspeed for potential chip smuggling and that no charges followed, and that Nvidia later ran unannounced on-site inspections in Singapore and found no evidence its chips were diverted into China, citing people familiar with the matter¹.

CNBC noted the proposed briefing is the day after Nvidia is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on Nov. 17³. The National said the letter went out a day after Republicans lost control of Congress in the midterms².

Whether Huang will attend, what intelligence officials told lawmakers, and whether any classified information reached China remain unconfirmed in the accounts reviewed^1,2,3.

Sources

1. Ars TechnicaNvidia CEO Jensen Huang summoned by Congress over Chinese espionage concernsNov 6, 9:14 AM
2. The NationalNvidia pushes back after Jensen Huang asked to closed-door meeting in Congress over ties to Chinese 'asset'Nov 6, 2:18 PM
3. CNBCNvidia's Huang is asked to brief Congress on reported Chinese spy relationshipNov 5, 4:12 PM
4. ReutersKey Republicans seek briefing from Nvidia CEO over Chinese spy allegations-documentNov 5, 1:45 PM

Read the original at Ars Technica ↗