A Chinese government spy approached NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang to gather information, and President Donald Trump reportedly took no action after being informed of the situation.
According to a report by The New York Times on October 29, U.S. intelligence agencies identified Alice Huang, a Chinese national, as having established a close relationship with CEO Huang and leaking information to China.
Alice Huang is a senior executive at MegaSpeed, a data center company based in Singapore.
Some Chinese sources indicate that she previously worked as a broadcast journalist in China and later held positions at major Chinese banks before working at Hershey Capital, a semiconductor and AI investment firm.
She has publicly introduced herself as the CEO of MegaSpeed, but company records show she served as managing director in its early days and has since stepped down from that role.
MegaSpeed has purchased NVIDIA chips to build data centers and has rented computing resources to Chinese companies. The company is listed as an official cloud partner on NVIDIA's website.
Between June 2024 and February of this year, the company's Malaysian affiliate acquired AI equipment containing NVIDIA chips worth at least $4.8 billion, an unusually large amount for a small firm.
U.S. authorities have been investigating MegaSpeed since 2024 over suspicions that it may have smuggled some NVIDIA chips, which are banned for export to China. A recent investigation by the U.S. Department of Commerce confirmed that some of the equipment purchased by the company was stored in its original packaging without being installed in data centers.
During surveillance of Alice Huang, U.S. authorities detected her contact with a specific American citizen. Following an unmasking procedure, it was revealed that the individual was Jensen Huang.
Photos posted on LinkedIn show Alice Huang sitting next to Jensen Huang at a bar in Taipei, Taiwan, in June 2024, alongside other AI executives. She was also seen leaving a business dinner with Jensen Huang and representatives from other AI partners in May of last year. Reports suggest she showcased her relationship with Jensen Huang on social media to attract investment.
The White House is on high alert, as there are concerns that Alice Huang may have gathered not only NVIDIA's technological information but also insights into President Trump's views on U.S.-China relations. The New York Times noted that this issue could be a significant topic during Trump's upcoming visit to China next month.
However, Trump reportedly took no action after receiving related reports about a year ago, likely due to concerns over potential disruptions to NVIDIA's semiconductor sales, which are crucial for the U.S. economy and stock market, as well as the complexities of U.S.-China trade relations.
U.S. officials believe that Jensen Huang was likely unaware that Alice Huang was a Chinese government spy, although some senior officials from the Trump administration have expressed doubts about whether he was completely oblivious to the situation, according to The New York Times.
It is reported that U.S. authorities did not conduct a defensive briefing to inform Jensen Huang that he was a target of foreign intelligence. Intelligence agencies sometimes skip such briefings if there is a risk that the surveillance could be exposed to the spy.
However, The New York Times added that it remains unclear which intelligence agency tracked and monitored Alice Huang and what specific information she may have passed on.
In response, NVIDIA stated that the relationship between the two individuals is purely business-related. NVIDIA spokesperson John Rizzo said, "Meetings with customers are part of the CEO's job, and Jensen speaks with thousands of customer executives each year. If the U.S. government believed a specific individual posed a threat to American industry, I am confident they would have informed us."
The Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., through spokesperson Liu Chang, dismissed the matter as "baseless slander and defamation."
MegaSpeed announced that it has appointed external legal counsel to conduct its own investigation and stated, "We take this matter extremely seriously and are committed to clarifying the facts while cooperating closely with the U.S. government's investigation."
The White House, CIA, and NSA declined to comment.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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