From 10 English words a day to a trillion-dollar empire: Why Nvidia's Jensen Huang is in focus

Did you know? Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s co-founder and CEO, did not know English before immigrating to the United States. Long before he became the face of the AI boom, Huang faced several hardships, odd jobs, and worked his way up to building one of the world's most valuable technology companies.

Before his family immigrated to the United States, his mother, Lo Tsai-hsiu, taught him and his brother 10 random English words every single day. Huang belonged to a middle-class Taiwanese family, with his native language being Taiwanese Hokkien, and he had little to no exposure to English before moving to the US. With his unusual look and accented English, Huang was frequently bullied and beaten.

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Decades on, Jensen is the face of Nvidia, leading the AI boom and steering the chipmaker's transformation into one of the world's most valuable companies, with its technology powering the next generation of artificial intelligence. However, he is being questioned for suspected ties to a Chinese spy.

Three House Republican committee chairs have requested a closed-door briefing on November 18 about his relationship with Alice Huang, a Singapore-based executive who is accused by the US intelligence agencies of passing sensitive information to Beijing.

The New York Times reported that officials believe Alice Huang cultivated a close relationship with the Nvidia chief. She was photographed beside him at a Taipei event in June 2024, and a year later reportedly arranged for her company, Megaspeed, to buy about $2 billion worth of Nvidia GPUs.

The investigation was fuelled after US Commerce Department officials reportedly discovered boxed Nvidia hardware at a data centre in Malaysia in late 2024. They suspected the equipment was being diverted to Chinese companies, potentially bypassing US export restrictions. However, no charges have been filed against Jensen Huang, Nvidia, Alice Huang or Megaspeed. Nvidia has also maintained that allegations of chip diversion were investigated and debunked.

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Intelligence officials reportedly briefed US President Donald Trump last year about the matter. They reportedly believed Huang was unaware of his alleged activities. Trump reportedly did not take any action following the briefing.

Nvidia has pushed back against allegations. A spokesperson said Huang’s interactions with Ms Huang were “not unusual or unexpected” and that he speaks with thousands of customer executives. 
On the other hand, Beijing has also dismissed the claims as groundless speculation, and Singapore said it had not investigated her alleged links.

Huang has until November 11 to accept the date or propose another. The request is voluntary, not a subpoena, and falls one day after Nvidia’s quarterly earnings. Senator Elizabeth Warren has separately urged Huang and Nvidia’s board to give Congress answers.

For a man who learned a language word by word, the coming weeks will test how carefully he chooses his own.