Shares in Chinese tech firms hit by spy chip allegations

Shares in the Chinese tech giants Lenovo and ZTE were pummelled after news came out that Beijing had inserted spyware microchips into computers used by US government agencies.

Bloomberg reported that data center equipment run by Amazon Web Services and Apple may have been under surveillance by the Chinese government in order to gather intellectual property and trade secrets from American firms.

The report claimed the company Supermicro may have supplied servers that allegedly contained the malicious hardware inserted by Chinese spies. The company later denied the report.

On Thursday, Apple and Amazon also denied that their computer systems were among those containing the devices.

Although the report did not contain any company names involved in the hack, Lenovo's shares fell more than 15% in Hong Kong trading on Friday, while ZTE lost more than 10%.

The day before, US listed shares of Supermicro cratered, with the company losing over 40% of its market value.

Lenovo said in a statement: "SuperMicro is not a supplier to Lenovo in any capacity. Furthermore, as a global company we take extensive steps to protect the ongoing integrity of our supply chain."