U.S. officials have reportedly determined that Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen and top executive at the Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed, is a Chinese intelligence asset who had developed a close relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and has been funneling information to Beijing.
Authorities were already investigating whether Alice Huang was helping China obtain restricted advanced Nvidia AI chips before surveillance revealed she had developed a close relationship with Jensen Huang, according to a report by the New York Times. The discovery raised alarms due to Huang’s central role in the global AI race as the CEO of Nvidia, which produces the most powerful AI chips in the world.
Nvidia, meanwhile, said Megaspeed is an ordinary regional customer and that Jensen Huang’s meetings with Alice Huang are routine CEO interactions with customers.
“Jensen’s interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected. Meetings with customers are part of a C.E.O.’s job; Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year,” Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo told the Times.
Rizzo added that Nvidia is “confident that if the U.S. government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know,” and that customers like Megaspeed “receive ordinary business information — not sensitive Nvidia trade secrets — and zero information relevant to national security.”
Nvidia — which evaluates buyers before approving a chip purchases and sometimes later checks to see if the buyer still has the chips — went on to say that there is no evidence of Megaspeed smuggling its chips to China.
Breitbart News previously reported that Nvidia restricted some customers due to fears of China smuggling:
Nvidia has taken significant steps to tighten control over the distribution of its AI chips in Asia.. The AI giant has established a new whitelist of verified customers that dramatically reduces the number of authorized clients by over fifty percent. This move comes as part of an intensified effort to prevent sophisticated AI processors from being illegally smuggled into China, where U.S. export restrictions have banned the sale of advanced AI chips since 2022.
The remaining companies on the approved list have undergone rigorous compliance inspections designed to confirm they are legitimate businesses rather than shell companies created to funnel Nvidia GPUs and servers into restricted markets. Nvidia’s verification process reportedly has included sending field staff to inspect customer data centers, conducting contract verification procedures, and interviewing end users to authenticate business operations.
Megaspeed also told the newspaper that its “current leadership” is taking the allegations “extremely seriously,” is cooperating with the U.S. government, and has hired outside counsel for an internal investigation.
The Chinese Embassy, meanwhile, dismissed the claims as “groundless smears and slanders.”
Many details remain classified or unknown, including exactly what information Alice Huang passed along to Beijing or its value.
Alana Mastrangelo-Wrask is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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