Pentagon · Nvidia · China · Jensen Huang · CNBC Technology
Chinese lidar maker with Nvidia ties accused of being cyber risk for U.S.
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 1 source + 4 references discovered via search. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
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Robots on the factory floor.
Key facts
- The Federal Communications Commission, which had designated Huawei a " national security threat " in 2020, forced U.S. companies to " rip and replace " Huawei products from their networks beginning
- Michael Robbins, CEO of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, a trade organization that represents companies in the industry, including U.S. lidar competitors, said that in 2024
- DJI sued the Defense Department in 2024 to be removed from the blacklist, but a federal judge ruled there was "substantial evidence" that the company contributes to China's defense industrial base
- Miroslav Pajic, a professor at Duke University who studies vulnerabilities in lidar sensors, told CNBC it's "easy to physically spoof lidar
Summary
They are all part of the physical artificial intelligence buildout that depends on high-tech, low-cost lidar, the critical sensors that allow these technologies to see their surroundings. And at the heart of this buildout is Hesai Technology, a Shanghai-based lidar manufacturer blacklisted as a national security threat in 2024 by the U.S. Department of Defense, which designated Hesai as a Chinese military entity. Government officials and security experts say the use of Chinese lidar could open this new, critical infrastructure to cyberthreats with potentially serious consequences and become a backdoor for Beijing to access sensitive data collected by the lidar technology. David Li, Hesai's co-founder and CEO, says the narrative that his company poses a threat is fiction. "In the DOD case, I don't feel there is sufficient evidence, and it's not logical," Li said.