It is rare for the board of a company worth trillions of dollars to investigate the man who built it. Yet that is what Nvidia announced this week, as its directors opened an independent inquiry into founder and CEO Jensen Huang. At the centre is his relationship with Alice Huang, an executive at the customer firm Megaspeed, who was reportedly recruited by China's Ministry of State Security to spy on the chipmaker. The story emerged last month, when The New York Times reported that Huang had developed a "close relationship" with the executive.

He later admitted in a memo to staff that it was romantic. US officials believe she passed information directly to Beijing. A committee of independent directors, assisted by outside counsel, will now oversee the review. The board says it has no reason to believe that national security or company secrets were compromised, and that Huang has promised to cooperate.

The significance goes beyond one man's private life. Nvidia's AI chips are widely seen as central to American technological leadership, which is why both the Biden and Trump administrations restricted their sale to China. Megaspeed is itself under investigation by the Commerce Department over whether it smuggled such chips into the country. President Trump has loosened some limits, but the most powerful chips remain barred, and individual Chinese firms need approval.