Separately, Huang announced new investments in the French technology sector. Megaspeed bought more than $4.8 billion worth of Nvidia chips over the past two years, according to the Times.
The review matters because Nvidia has become a central player in the global race to develop artificial intelligence. Its chips power many of the data centers and computing systems used to train and run AI models.
Nvidia, described as the world’s most valuable company, has regularly surpassed Wall Street’s earnings expectations in the past three years, since its high-end chips emerged as artificial intelligence’s best building blocks.
Huang apologized in a message to the company, according to the Times. The available account did not include the text of that message.
“I've always found Jensen Huang to be very aboveboard,” Trump told reporters in October.
The board’s statement did not identify the foreign service said to have targeted Huang, and it did not describe how the reported operation was carried out. It said only that the inquiry would look at the information available to the company. The board said in a statement it had “no reason to believe” that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised. It said the inquiry would examine all available information.
Huang “fully supports the review and has committed to cooperating with it,” the board said. He will remain chief executive during the inquiry and has pledged cooperation.