From chip war to political witch-hunt: How Chinese media views Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's affair scandal

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is the center of a high-profile corporate scandal after admitting to an extramarital affair with Alice Huang, a prominent Chinese businesswoman whom US intelligence agencies suspect is a Chinese intelligence asset spying for Beijing. The Nvidia CEO has pledged to cooperate with an independent investigation and has sent an email to Nvidia staff admitting that he had been "unfaithful" to his wife, Lori Mills. He apologised for hurting his family, taking full responsibility for his actions.

Also Read: Who is Alice Huang, the woman Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang allegedly had an affair with?

However, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed the espionage claims as an unsubstantiated smear campaign against Beijing. Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) clarified that it did not investigate Alice Huang for alleged intelligence ties or espionage. But Singapore authorities did confirm an ongoing domestic investigation into her former company, Megaspeed.

Towing the line taken by Beijing, the Chinese media and social media commentary are framing the controversy as part of a broader US strategy to tighten its grip on the artificial intelligence chip industry and restrict China's access to advanced semiconductors. The Chinese stance states that the controversy is a politically consequential episode in the US-China technology rivalry, rather than solely as a question of alleged espionage and personal conduct. It completely omits Nvidia CEO Huang's own statement wherein he has admitted to being unfaithful to his wife and promised to take part in the probe.

What exactly is the Chinese stance so far?

In an opinion article published on Monday (Nov 9), China's state-run Global Times questioned whether the scrutiny of Huang amounted to counter-espionage or a "political witch hunt". The newspaper argued that the allegations against the Nvidia chief had been amplified by Western media despite what it described as a lack of publicly available, independently verifiable evidence. It also questioned the reliance on anonymous sources and asked who stood to benefit from the controversy.

Also Read: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's love story with wife Lori goes viral amid alleged Chinese spy affair

Linking it to ongoing competition between China and the US over artificial intelligence, it argued that business links involving China were increasingly being viewed through a national security lens, adding that Huang was facing scrutiny despite being a US citizen and heading a major American technology company. The newspaper also pointed to political divisions in Washington over AI development and Nvidia's China-related business.

Similarly, an elaborate version of this argument has been shared on X by a page that attributed it to Taiwanese semiconductor analyst Andrew Lu. In an analysis titled "Why the US Seized on the Scandal to Draw Its Sword: Three Strategic Objectives", Lu argued that the controversy was not primarily about Huang's alleged affair but could serve three strategic objectives for Washington. Lu claimed that the allegations could undermine Huang's long-standing opposition to tighter US chip export restrictions on China. He argued that portraying the woman linked to Huang as a suspected Chinese intelligence operative could recast the Nvidia CEO's lobbying for access to the Chinese market as a potential national security concern, weakening his ability to argue against export controls.

Lu also linked the controversy to reporting on US-approved Chinese buyers of Nvidia's H200 chips. He suggested that the timing of the reports could increase pressure on the Trump administration to reconsider export approvals and close alleged loopholes through which advanced chips could be diverted to China via third-party data centres and Southeast Asian networks. The analyst further argued that congressional scrutiny and an independent investigation at Nvidia could bring the company under closer national security oversight. Lu summed up his interpretation by writing that the scandal was a "detonator set off right on cue", with the larger objective being to plug alleged gaps in restrictions on chip exports to China.