Key points
- US probes whether Alice Huang-linked entities helped smuggle Super Micro products
- The Manhattan US Attorney's Office is leading the Alice Huang inquiry
- Nvidia hired a former head of the office to investigate reporting about Jensen Huang
The Justice Department is investigating whether entities linked to Alice Huang were involved in efforts to smuggle products made by Super Micro Computer (SMCI) to China, Bloomberg reported on Nov. 12. US officials suspect Alice Huang, a former Megaspeed executive, of spying for China, according to the report. Jensen Huang, who acknowledged an affair on Nov. 8, resigned as Nvidia's CEO the same day as the report.
Super Micro shares were at $27.48 at 3:06 p.m. ET, down 9.7% from Wednesday's close of $30.43. The stock had opened about 11% lower, before the report was published.
The Manhattan US attorney's office is leading the inquiry
The US attorney's office in Manhattan is leading the previously unreported scrutiny of Alice Huang, according to the report. It isn't clear whether the inquiry is tied to any of the chip smuggling cases prosecutors have already brought in the US or Asia, the report said.
The same office announced on March 19 the unsealing of an indictment charging Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan Liaw and two others with conspiring to divert servers with US artificial intelligence technology to China. Super Micro wasn't named as a defendant and said it had cooperated with investigators, Al Jazeera reported at the time.
Super Micro, based in San Jose, California, makes servers that run Nvidia's AI chips.
Nvidia's board hired a former head of that office
Nvidia's independent directors hired Joon H. Kim, a former acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, to run their investigation of Jensen Huang, Nvidia said on Nov. 10. The Southern District is the Manhattan office that the report says is now looking at Alice Huang. The reports don't say the two investigations are connected.
The board's investigation covers reporting that Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. Nvidia's Nov. 12 filing on his resignation doesn't say whether that investigation will continue.
Megaspeed already faces a US criminal inquiry
Alice Huang was a senior executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore data center company that was one of Nvidia's biggest customers in Southeast Asia. The Justice Department is conducting a criminal inquiry into Megaspeed, The New York Times has reported. Megaspeed pledged on Nov. 12 to cooperate with US investigators.
We're tracking each development on our Jensen Huang scandal timeline.
