Nvidia CEO’s Alleged Chinese Spy Affair Now Reportedly Involves $7.5 Billion in Chip Sales

The more that comes out about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, a suspected Chinese intelligence asset, the worse the situation looks for the chipmaker. The Information reported Tuesday, citing sources familar with the matter, that her relationship with Jensen and Nvidia helped facilitate at least $7.5 billion in Nvidia chip shipments to Chinese companies since 2023. The report also details how Alice, her husband, and her sister were linked to a network of companies across China and Singapore that obtained the chips. The news comes just days after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whose company dominates the AI chip market, admitted to having an affair. The New York Times was the first to identify that woman as Alice Huang. Nvidia’s board of directors has since launched an independent investigation into the matter. The company said it has no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised. Still, the scandal is rattling investors. Nvidia shares fell another 5% Tuesday, following a drop of more than 4% on Monday. The Information’s latest investigation sheds more light on Alice Huang’s ties to Nvidia and the network of companies allegedly used to obtain its restricted AI chips. According to the report, Alice Huang’s sister, Huang Yu, indirectly controlled a company that became the founding shareholder of Shanghai Century Litong, a Chinese cloud computing company established in June 2023. That shareholder later exited Century Litong in 2024. Just four months after its founding, Century Litong secured Nvidia’s preferred cloud partner status, giving it priority access to the company’s chips. The designation came shortly after the U.S. expanded export restrictions to include Nvidia’s A800 and H800 chips, which had been designed for the Chinese market. The Information reports that Century Litong was able to secure large quantities of A800 and H800 chips already held by distributors, even as new restrictions limited shipments into China. Alice Huang also allegedly used her connections inside Nvidia and with its distributors to help secure restricted chips when orders ran into supply problems. According to The Information’s sources, she helped move roughly 240,000 restricted Nvidia chips into China, mostly powerful H100 and H200 processors, along with some older A100 chips. Some of the hardware reportedly ended up in data centers serving major Chinese tech companies, including Alibaba and Tencent. Meanwhile, Alice Huang also served as managing director of Singapore-based Megaspeed from March to November 2023. Corporate records show that the company was previously owned by a British Virgin Islands entity that shared her Chinese name, Huang Le Limited. That ownership changed in November 2023, when another Singapore-based company took control of Megaspeed. According to The Information, the company acquired chips that were later either installed in Southeast Asian data centers and rented remotely to Chinese customers or physically shipped into China. In February 2024, Megaspeed also established a Malaysian subsidiary called Speedmatrix. Some of the Nvidia hardware purchased by Speedmatrix eventually ended up with Century Litong, according to people familiar with its business. Last December, Bloomberg reported that Megaspeed had imported at least $4.6 billion worth of Nvidia hardware including more than 136,000 graphics processing units since 2023. U.S. and Singaporean authorities also launched separate investigation into Megaspeed over suspicions that restricted Nvidia chips were being smuggled from Southeast Asia into China. Nvidia did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment. However, in a statement to The Information, an Nvidia spokesperson said the company primarily sells its data center GPUs through established partners and works with them to ensure compliance with U.S. export controls. The spokesperson added that Nvidia applies the same standards to all transactions and expects its partners to follow them. The company also said its due diligence and cooperation with law enforcement have helped uncover suspected efforts to evade export restrictions, resulting in federal prosecutions.