Jensen Huang — who was ousted as Nvidia’s chief executive on Thursday after a national security scandal and affair allegations — was reportedly introduced to the alleged Chinese honeypot, Alice Huang, by her husband Kang Wei.
People who know the couple told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Kang, a Chinese businessman, is the husband of Alice Huang and has known Jensen Huang for a decade.
“For two years, Kang appeared to accept his wife’s romantic relationship with the Nvidia CEO and spoke openly of their closeness, these people said. Sometimes, Kang told associates, half-jokingly, that she was a personal assistant to Jensen Huang, they said,” according to the report. “The introduction to the CEO at the center of the global AI boom is the clearest example of how Kang and Alice Huang leveraged personal connections to further an array of business ventures in China, Singapore, Taiwan and elsewhere.”
The WSJ, the New York Times and other outlets reported that U.S. officials believe Alice Huang, a former top executive at the Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed, was likely sending information to Chinese intelligence while maintaining a close relationship with Jensen Huang, who was CEO of Nvidia, a leading AI infrastructure company.
According to the WSJ, Kang and Alice Huang moved from one money-making opportunity to to another, including video game companies, pharmaceutical takeovers, and cloud computing. People familiar with the couple’s business endeavors told the publication each move involved a web of related entities, the transferring of stakes among themselves, and using connections to advance their interests. Nvidia’s AI chips were their latest target, per the report.
American officials believe China’s intelligence services recruited Alice Huang as an asset because of her access to Jensen Huang, per the report. Beijing has denied that Alice Huang is a spy, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun said early this week that the narrative is “based on groundless speculation” and is “nothing more than slander and smearing.”
While the publication was unable to determine when Kang and Alice Huang met, the pair began co-running a firm called Shanghai Hexi in 2016. Shanghai Hexi, which means “harmonious prosperity,” invested in all kinds of tech businesses, including video games, which led to Kang meeting Jensen Huang in the 2010s. At the time, Jensen Huang was a rising CEO in Silicon Valley, and Nvidia was primarily focused on chips for video games.
A person who worked at one of Kang’s portfolio companies told the WSJ Jensen and Kang met in Asia around that time and he helped connect the two men.
By the early 2020s, Kang and Alice Huang began focusing on cloud computing. The couple fostered relationships with Chinese tech giants through a company in which a fund they owned had a partial stake, according to the report.
By 2023, the couple got involved in AI data centers. The pair bought the Singapore-based unit of a video game company they had previously invested in and renamed it Megaspeed International in March of that year, with Alice Huang named as its director, people familiar with the matter told the publication. Kang worked with Alice Huang in helping her build the business, the sources said. Megaspeed went on to become the largest buyer of Nvidia chips in Southeast Asia.
According to the report:
The couple expanded their business. Investors approached by Alice Huang and Kang in Shanghai and Singapore said the couple pitched several data-center projects between late 2024 and June 2025 including two in Southeast Asia and one in Shanghai. According to the potential investors, the duo said that investors could expect to triple their money in three years and expressed confidence they had ways to bring Nvidia chips into China. Then as now, the U.S. bans the export of advanced Nvidia AI chips to China.
The publication was unable to reach Kang and Alice Huang, and Nvidia declined to comment, per the report.
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