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U.S. investigated Chinese spy plot aimed at Nvidia CEO

By · Via TechCrunch · Published by Everything Blog

In short

United States intelligence agencies tracked Megaspeed executive Alice Huang following concerns over her close access to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at regional business dinners. Officials feared she sought insight into the executive's efforts to lobby the Trump administration regarding shipments of advanced chips to China. Nvidia denied any wrongdoing, stating interactions were strictly standard corporate meetings that did not involve trade secrets. Megaspeed has separately faced federal scrutiny, including a 2025 Commerce Department investigation into whether the firm helped Chinese entities evade export restrictions.

Key points

  • U.S. officials were concerned that Chinese intelligence sought insight into Jensen Huang'…: U.S. officials were concerned that Chinese intelligence sought insight into Jensen Huang's lobbying efforts aimed at the Trump administration.
  • Nvidia maintained that regional cloud customers like Megaspeed receive only standard corp…: Nvidia maintained that regional cloud customers like Megaspeed receive only standard corporate updates rather than national security secrets.
  • Federal investigators have scrutinized Megaspeed over suspected efforts to help Chinese f…: Federal investigators have scrutinized Megaspeed over suspected efforts to help Chinese firms circumvent American restrictions on artificial intelligence chips.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

A top executive of a Singapore AI cloud firm that was accused of illegally selling Nvidia chips to China could also have been a Chinese spy, anonymous sources told the New York Times.

The executive, Alice Huang (or Huang Le), worked for Megaspeed, and was photographed as one of multiple people hanging out of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during various business dinners in the Singapore region. U.S. intelligence agencies had been surveilling Alice Huang to learn more about her ties with China for about a year, the Times reports.

The concern, sources said, was that Alice Huang had grown so close to Jensen Huang, that she could have been gathering information about Nvidia’s plans and the CEO’s efforts to convince the Trump Administration to allow it to ship more advanced technology to China.

But an Nvidia spokesperson denied this, telling TechCrunch that the CEO’s relationship with the Megaspeed executive was the same as with any other regional customer.

“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…

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