A single sentence was enough to set the internet buzzing. A short summary circulating this week said that "Huang," a co-founder of Nvidia, had seen his career sink after reports of an affair with an alleged Chinese spy. Read quickly, it seems to describe the most powerful man in artificial intelligence. It should be read slowly, because the claim is unverified, and nothing in the summary establishes who the person is or what actually happened.

The caution matters. Nvidia was co-founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, who remains its chief executive, and by two other engineers. The company's graphics chips now power most of the world's advanced AI systems, and its market value has at times exceeded three trillion dollars. Huang is neither reported to have resigned nor to have been accused of any such thing by credible outlets.

A shared surname and a compressed headline can easily produce a story that does not exist. Even so, the episode is revealing. Nvidia sits at the centre of a technological rivalry between Washington and Beijing. American export controls restrict the sale of its most advanced processors to China, and smuggling cases, lobbying battles and espionage fears now surround the industry.