The scandal that brought down Jensen Huang as CEO of Nvidia, the AI chip giant he cofounded, has highlighted the growing demand for protection against industrial espionage.
Last weekend, he admitted to a romantic affair with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy. While the U.S. intelligence community raised alarms about their relationship, Huang continued to enjoy access to President Donald Trump and his top administration officials.
Nvidia’s board launched an investigation but doesn’t think that national security or company secrets were compromised.
Still, U.S. officials believe Megaspeed executive Alice Huang was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security, and surveillance revealed that she was feeding information to Beijing, according to reports. China has denied any espionage.
The case came a month after an OpenAI engineer was arrested for planting a listening device in a company conference room. The Justice Department alleged he was communicating with a member of the Saudi royal family.
Given the high-stakes race to achieve AI supremacy, the technology has been deemed a matter of national security, and protecting trade secrets has become especially critical.
AI firms like OpenAI, Anthropic and Nvidia have started hiring for counterintelligence roles in recent years, with most salaries ranging from $200,000 to $500,000, according to workforce data tracker Revelio Labs.
Revelio data compiled by Reuters shows that Anthropic alone has hired 33 employees for counterintelligence functions so far this year, up from 14 last year, and nine in 2024. In 2025, Anthropic appointed former CIA deputy director David Cohen and former National Security Agency cybersecurity director Dave Luber to its national security advisory council.
OpenAI’s counterintelligence hiring jumped to 22 in 2026 from nine in 2025. And in 2024, OpenAI named former National Security Agency director Paul Nakasone to its board.
Despite the Nvidia scandal, the company actually hired 16 people for counterintelligence this year.
“The AI firms have snapped up a lot of security talent,” Christopher Falkenberg, a former U.S. Secret Service agent and current president of Insite Risk Management, told Reuters.
“There are some very sophisticated people out of government thinking about security for these businesses… Demand outstrips the supply of people with relevant experience.”
Top tech firms are looking for even more talent. OpenAI is seeking a senior global security investigator with counterintelligence listed as a key skill, Anthropic is advertising for a threat-intelligence security engineer, and ASML is in the hunt for a Taiwan-based intelligence officer, according to Reuters.
Eric O’Neill, a former FBI counterintelligence operative, told Fortune‘s Tatiana Sataua this week that protecting executives should include teaching them to recognize manipulation—and giving others a way to intervene when the boss won’t listen.
He said an approach rarely begins with someone asking an executive to hand over company secrets. It may start at a conference, through a business introduction, over drinks, or even on a dating app.
Warning signs can be subtle: a relationship that moves unusually quickly, persistent questions about sensitive business matters, requests to meet influential colleagues, or encouragement to keep secrets. Those signs are harder to recognize when the person under scrutiny is someone the executive trusts.
“By the time a security professional raises concerns, the executive may already be emotionally invested and unwilling to listen,” O’Neill said.
Of course, the private sector isn’t alone in identifying the need to guard against industrial espionage. The U.S. defense and intelligence communities are getting more aggressive.
Sources told the Washington Post last month that the Pentagon is planning a spying program that deploys “nonofficial cover officers” who pose as executives—a covert effort in a larger economic warfare campaign.
Politico also reported that the Defense Department is quietly building an elite agency to covertly sabotage foreign technology programs that could threaten U.S. military superiority.
The Technology Support Office was established in April by reorganizing two classified intelligence programs that have been secretly carrying out technology sabotage at a smaller scale since 2023.
The Pentagon has denied the reports.
Other signs point to the U.S. taking economic warfare more seriously. In September, CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis said the U.S. is expanding espionage against China by targeting companies in sensitive areas like AI, biotechnology and chips.
Also this year, the Pentagon formed the Economic Defense Unit for “deterring, denying, disrupting, and helping to defeat adversaries through economic means,” sources told DefenseScoop.
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