US intelligence believes Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had relationship with 'Chinese spy': What we know
US intelligence officials believe Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang had a romantic relationship with a Chinese businesswoman suspected of working for Beijing's main intelligence agency, according to a report by the Financial Times.
The US government prepared a memo earlier this year based on intelligence assessments that Huang had been involved with Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based customer of Nvidia, the Financial Times reported.
The US intelligence community believes Alice Huang was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) to gather information on the Nvidia chief.
The document was circulated among a small group of senior US government officials shortly before President Donald Trump travelled to Beijing for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the report said.
The New York Times reported that the intelligence assessment suggested Alice Huang's relationship with Jensen Huang was part of a broader Chinese effort to obtain information about US artificial intelligence technology and potentially influence Nvidia's decisions on chip exports to China.
The Times reported that US officials believed the businesswoman had been tasked with collecting intelligence on the Nvidia chief. The newspaper added that the memo had been shared with senior policymakers in the Trump administration last spring.
Alice Huang is an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company that has attracted US scrutiny over allegations that it helped move advanced Nvidia chips into China in violation of American export restrictions.
Megaspeed was spun off from a Chinese gaming company in 2023 and has been building data centres in Southeast Asia. These facilities reportedly rent computing capacity to Chinese technology company Alibaba, potentially providing access to advanced Nvidia chips that cannot be sold directly to China under US restrictions, the New York Times reported.
Alice Huang had connections with business executives in the AI chip industry and had attended industry conferences and private meetings. In 2024, she and Jensen Huang were photographed together at a bar in Taipei, around the time Megaspeed began a multibillion-dollar purchase of advanced AI chips.
Nvidia had previously conducted an internal investigation into allegations that Megaspeed was involved in chip smuggling, but found no evidence of wrongdoing, according to the FT.
The allegations have emerged amid growing US concerns about China's access to advanced semiconductor technology. Washington has tightened restrictions on exports of high-end AI chips to China, citing concerns that the technology could strengthen Beijing's military capabilities.
The company has previously said that Jensen Huang meets thousands of customer executives every year. An Nvidia spokesperson also told the New York Times that the company's interactions with Alice Huang were not unusual and that it did not share classified information with customers.
The spokesperson added that Chinese authorities had consistently encouraged the development of domestic alternatives, including Huawei products, while restricting imports of Nvidia's data centre products.
The Chinese embassy in Washington dismissed the allegations reported by the Times as unsubstantiated, describing them as attacks on China.
The disclosures come as Republican leaders of three influential House committees have sought a closed-door briefing with Jensen Huang. According to the New York Times, lawmakers want to question him about his interactions with Alice Huang and the security safeguards Nvidia has in place.
The request followed an earlier New York Times report that US intelligence agencies believed Jensen Huang had been targeted in a Chinese espionage operation and had monitored Alice Huang for at least a year.
Jensen Huang is a central figure in the global AI industry, with Nvidia's advanced processors playing a crucial role in the development of artificial intelligence systems.
The US government has become increasingly concerned about China's efforts to obtain advanced chips that could accelerate its AI capabilities and military modernisation.
Huang has repeatedly advocated allowing US chipmakers to sell AI processors to Chinese customers, arguing that American companies should remain competitive in the global market. He has also lobbied the Trump administration on export restrictions.
The New York Times reported that Huang persuaded Trump in 2025 to ease a prohibition on certain AI chip sales to China, allowing Nvidia to sell a less powerful processor. The two sides later agreed to permit sales of a more advanced chip, with the US government receiving a share of the revenue.
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