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Singapore: The Jensen Huang saga is the latest example of what governments around the world say is a broad push by China to steal commercial and technological secrets and gather intelligence on foreign leaders and military plans.<\/p>\n
The revelation that Nvidia\u2019s now ex-CEO<\/a> had an affair with a woman suspected of spying for China<\/a> has rocked the US artificial intelligence boom and thrust allegations that Beijing is seeking to infiltrate Western tech giants into public view. It fits into what foreign officials say is a globe-spanning project.<\/p>\n In Germany, prosecutors allege a married couple posing as interpreters and car industry employees cultivated professors in AI, computer science and aerospace, drawing some to China for paid \u201ccivilian\u201d lectures delivered to state arms companies. New Zealand intelligence says a Chinese observatory with close government ties tried to install space-tracking equipment through a local company \u2013 gear that could also collect military intelligence. Taiwan says Chinese operatives trawl social media for indebted soldiers, offer loans, then press them for secrets and introductions to colleagues.<\/p>\n Security agencies around the world have raised the alarm. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) calls Chinese espionage \u201ca grave threat to the economic well-being\u201d of the US. Britain\u2019s MI5 said it was running seven times as many China-related investigations in 2022 as four years earlier. Canadian intelligence calls China its \u201cgreatest counter-intelligence threat\u201d, while Dutch intelligence says Chinese digital espionage against technology companies is happening on a \u201clarge scale\u201d.<\/p>\n Beijing has dismissed the Huang espionage allegations as a smear, accusing Washington of fabricating \u201cChinese spy narratives\u201d to justify restrictions on technology exports. Despite those denials, the suspected spy at the centre of the scandal that toppled Huang is now in China with the knowledge of the Chinese government.<\/p>\n Related Article At stake is the balance of power between the world\u2019s two largest economies. America has bet that its lead in AI and advanced semiconductors will underpin its continued economic strength and military superiority, while its ability to project force across the Pacific constrains Beijing\u2019s ambitions over Taiwan. Espionage offers China a way to erode those advantages, accelerating its technological rise while gaining insight into Washington\u2019s military plans and political decision-making.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a lack of appreciation for how professional the Chinese services have become,\u201d said Holden Triplett, who ran the FBI\u2019s office in Beijing and founded Trenchcoat Advisors, noting that parts of China\u2019s intelligence service now rivalled the US Central Intelligence Agency and Russia\u2019s Federal Security Service.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re hitting on human frailty and vulnerability and they\u2019re spending all day thinking about how to do this,\u201d he added. \u201cAnyone can fall for it.\u201d<\/p>\n China\u2019s spying push is intensifying in its backyard as Beijing continues to expand its military footprint in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n In the Philippines, suspected Chinese spies claimed to be using drones to carry fishing bait as they monitored warships around Subic Bay. Others posed as seafood buyers while flying drones near a naval base. In Manila, hired drivers cruised past the presidential palace, military camps and the US embassy in cars fitted with fake mobile phone towers capable of collecting data from nearby phones. Another vehicle, equipped with cameras and mapping technology, visited more than 120 locations, including bases used by American forces.<\/p>\n The alleged operations reached deep inside the Philippine government. Authorities say suspected Chinese agents also recruited people inside the country\u2019s defence establishment, obtaining names of naval personnel and schedules for troop rotations and resupply missions to disputed South China Sea outposts.<\/p>\n The cases offered a rare glimpse into the scale and sophistication of Beijing\u2019s espionage operations \u2013 which an investigator said were carried out by a spy network that numbered in the hundreds. China has dismissed the allegations as baseless.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is extremely widespread because that is the modus operandi of the Chinese,\u201d Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s not only here \u2013 the United States. How many are being arrested? Within Australia, how many? In the UK, how many?\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article China\u2019s Ministry of State Security (MSS) is at the centre of Beijing\u2019s increasingly brazen espionage push. The country\u2019s main civilian spy service combines the overseas remit of the CIA with a domestic remit like that of the FBI. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, reforms have tightened Beijing\u2019s control over provincial and municipal intelligence bureaus, allowing the MSS to co-ordinate operations across the country and pursue more ambitious missions overseas.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s become more aggressive,\u201d said Randy Phillips, a former CIA Beijing station chief. \u201cIf you look at the kinds of targets they\u2019ve gone after in the last 10 years, they\u2019ve become a much more emboldened organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n The MSS is only one arm of what Britain\u2019s parliamentary watchdog has called \u201cthe largest state intelligence apparatus in the world\u201d: the People\u2019s Liberation Army runs military, signals and cyber intelligence; the Ministry of Public Security operates at home and abroad; party bodies cultivate political, business and academic networks overseas.<\/p>\n Xi has also handed intelligence agencies broader powers and obliged citizens and institutions to help them. The 2017 National Intelligence Law says every organisation and citizen must \u201csupport, assist, and co-operate\u201d with intelligence work.<\/p>\n While the US and other countries spy on adversaries and allies, most argue that they don\u2019t engage in industrial espionage the way that the MSS does and none has its scale.<\/p>\n \u2018They\u2019re hitting on human frailty and vulnerability and they\u2019re spending all day thinking about how to do this.\u2019<\/p>\n Holden Triplett, who ran the FBI\u2019s office in Beijing and founded Trenchcoat Advisors<\/p>\n \u201cThe numbers in military and civilian intelligence and in the public security apparatus that feeds into intelligence are probably well into the millions,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n As the AI revolution has taken off, the technology that underpins it has become a crucial target for Chinese spy agencies, including obtaining it through hacking and human sources, which has made people working at the cutting edge in government, industry and academia potential targets, according to Western officials familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n \u201cThe CCP considers itself as in pretty much an existential contest with the United States and other democracies. The hinge on which this contest will turn is scientific and technological power and central to that will be artificial intelligence,\u201d said Peter Mattis, a former CIA counterintelligence analyst who is now president of the Jamestown Foundation. \u201cAny C-suite in the AI industry is going to be an interesting target.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article AI is also reshaping Chinese spycraft. The biggest gains come early in recruitment, helping services sift huge pools of potential targets and tailor approaches before a human officer steps in.<\/p>\n In June, the FBI and Justice Department said suspected Chinese spies used fake consulting firms, lucrative job offers and AI-generated photographs to lure Americans with security clearances onto encrypted messaging apps. In October, US counterintelligence officials warned that Beijing was using AI tools, including DeepSeek, to profile American executives and government officials, identify their vulnerabilities and gain leverage over them.<\/p>\n \u201cWith AI, you just set up the algorithm to go after targets. You save a tremendous amount of manpower and searching \u2013 it\u2019s a force multiplier,\u201d said Dennis Wilder, the CIA\u2019s former deputy assistant director for East Asia and the Pacific. Then, once targets were identified, Chinese agents could meet them online instead of undertaking risky travel overseas, Wilder said. \u201cHuman espionage doesn\u2019t any more have to be sneaking around back alleys.\u201d<\/p>\n AI is also bolstering China\u2019s already formidable cyber capabilities. Microsoft said last month that the China-linked group Storm-0940 used agentic AI to automate attacks against hundreds of organisations worldwide.<\/p>\n In September, Britain\u2019s MI5 warned that the China General Technology Research Institute was funding research in AI and cybersecurity primarily to strengthen the Ministry of State Security\u2019s espionage capabilities. More than 100 UK-linked academics had contributed to projects ultimately funded by the MSS, MI5 said, sometimes without knowing who was paying.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t the only [alleged] operation against Nvidia. You should assume there are another 10 or more going on and, of course, it\u2019s not the only operation going on against US tech,\u201d said Triplett, the former FBI agent. \u201cMy guess is that they\u2019ll be encouraged by how this worked out and they\u2019ll do more and more of these operations.\u201d<\/p>\n Bloomberg<\/p>\n Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/1794668900_743_6a2b439444995a2f30dcb87cd7b880e1982813ce.jpeg\")
The revelation that Nvidia\u2019s now ex-CEO, Jensen Huang, had an affair with a woman suspected of spying for China has rocked the tech world.AP<\/p>\n![\"Nvidia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/1794668901_598_f22d1b58fd02cf7f939cac96d16e8a635c6c85d8.jpeg\")
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