Key House Republicans are requesting a briefing from Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang on his dealings with a Megaspeed International executive who the New York Times has reported is under US government investigation for allegedly spying on behalf of China.
Huang was asked to appear before a joint closed-door meeting with House committees on the chipmaker’s security protocols by three lawmakers who head national security panels and cited public reports about his interactions with Megaspeed executive Huang Le. Last week, the Times reported that the Megaspeed executive had been under US government surveillance for allegedly providing information to the Chinese government.
“Recent reports raise significant national security concerns regarding the PRC’s access to sensitive U.S. technology and information,” wrote Representatives Brian Mast, John Moolenaar and Rick Crawford in the letter, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “It is vital that Congress determines the extent to which U.S. national security has been placed at risk.”
Deep Dive
Why are US lawmakers asking Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to attend a closed-door briefing?
What has Nvidia said about Megaspeed potentially sending its AI chips to China?
What would the proposed AI Overwatch Act do to Nvidia chip sales?
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The Republicans’ request to the Nvidia chief emerged days after Democrats scored sweeping victories in midterm elections that will put both the House and Senate under Democratic control. Incoming Democratic leadership has promised to ramp up scrutiny of corporate behavior, with Silicon Valley companies expected to draw particular attention.
{{/usCountry}}The Republicans’ request to the Nvidia chief emerged days after Democrats scored sweeping victories in midterm elections that will put both the House and Senate under Democratic control. Incoming Democratic leadership has promised to ramp up scrutiny of corporate behavior, with Silicon Valley companies expected to draw particular attention.
{{/usCountry}}In a statement, an Nvidia spokesperson said that Huang talks with “thousands” of customers a year. “We’re confident that if the US government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know,” the spokesperson said.
Mast heads the Foreign Affairs Committee and Crawford leads the intelligence panel, while Moolenaar chairs a select committee on China. Democrats are set to take control of those panels once the new Congress takes office in January. The lawmakers requested that Huang appear on Nov. 18.
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Mast, whose panel has oversight of AI chip sales, has frequently disagreed with Nvidia over export control policy. At one point in January, he accused the company and its chief executive of fighting to sell millions of chips to Chinese companies and challenged Huang to debate him on Fox News.
Earlier this year, Mast worked on a bill to introduce arms-style congressional oversight over the sale of advanced AI chips and give Congress the ability to block H200 sales through a joint resolution. That bill, dubbed the AI Overwatch Act, would block sales of the company’s Blackwell or more advanced chips. A version of that measure, albeit without the joint resolution power, advanced in the Senate and is now being considered for inclusion an annual defense package.
In an interview last week, Jensen Huang defended his dealings with Singapore-based Megaspeed, calling them “normal and not unusual,” while stressing that the company has checked to ensure that Megaspeed didn’t illegally send Nvidia’s artificial intelligence processors to China.
“We’ve studied all their deployments of our GPUs and counted every one,” Huang said in the interview. “And I think the US government also has as well.”