Chinese Spy Allegations Involve Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Megaspeed Executive

In brief

• Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive, is under investigation for allegedly passing information to China.
• US authorities are concerned about her close relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
• President Trump was briefed on the situation but did not take action.

Investigation centers on Megaspeed executive

The New York Times reported that US authorities have been monitoring Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Chinese citizen who served as a senior executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed (Nvidia’s Huang says dealings with firm in US spy probe were ’normal’, Bloomberg News reports – Investing.com) (Alleged Chinese spy had 'close relationship' with Nvidia boss Jensen Huang – Hacker News). Megaspeed is a cloud and data center company that supplies AI computing power to Chinese firms, including Alibaba.

According to people briefed on classified findings, intelligence officers concluded that Huang was secretly feeding information to Beijing (U.S. investigated Chinese spy plot aimed at Nvidia CEO – TechCrunch). Investigators had suspected her of helping China evade US export controls to obtain advanced Nvidia chips through Megaspeed (Report: Trump did nothing with intel that China planted spy close to Nvidia CEO – Ars Technica). Her name appeared briefly as Megaspeed's managing director after the firm was set up in 2023, but it was later dropped from corporate filings (Intel Community Reportedly Tied Trump’s Favorite AI Boss to a Chinese Spy – Gizmodo).

Concern over access to Jensen Huang

Photographs show the two at business dinners, including a Taipei bar in June 2024. Officials feared she could gather information on Nvidia's plans and the company's efforts to win approval for shipping more advanced chips to China. The reports offered no evidence that Jensen Huang was aware of any intelligence activities.

Trump briefed but did not act

About a year ago, President Donald Trump was reportedly informed that Beijing was receiving reports from someone with direct access to Jensen Huang (Trump nie zareagował na alarm służb. W tle szef Nvidii i Chiny – Bankier.pl). According to the Times, he chose not to take action (Трамп знал. Китайская разведка подобралась к главе Nvidia через его деловую партнершу — NYT – NV). Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated last month that the president was completely aligned with Jensen Huang.

Nvidia's response

Nvidia rejected the characterization. Jensen Huang told Bloomberg News that the company's dealings with Megaspeed were normal and not unusual, and that Nvidia had counted every GPU Megaspeed deployed. An Nvidia spokesperson stated that meetings with customer executives are part of a chief executive's job and that the diversion allegations had been investigated and debunked (Nvidia responds to report Jensen Huang was target of Chinese asset, says diversion allegations were 'investigated and debunked' – CNBC).