Nvidia is investigating its chief executive, Jensen Huang, after reports alleged that Alice Huang, a former television journalist and semiconductor executive, was recruited by Beijing to target him and gain access to information about the company’s advanced artificial intelligence chips.
Jensen Huang has acknowledged having an affair with Huang Le, who is also known as Alice Huang, after previously saying there was nothing inappropriate about their relationship. Nvidia said its board had launched an independent investigation “in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort”.
The allegations centre on Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based company founded by Huang Le in 2023. The business became one of Nvidia’s largest customers in South-East Asia and a major renter of its advanced processors to Chinese technology firms.
Reports have identified Huang Le as a suspected Chinese spy working for Beijing’s Ministry of State Security. The claims have not been proven, and Megaspeed said it denied any wrongdoing and complied with all regulations relevant to its operations.
The company said it was surprised by allegations that a former Megaspeed executive had acted as a foreign intelligence asset. Nvidia has previously said an inquiry into Megaspeed found no evidence that its chips had been diverted and concluded that the company was fully owned and operated outside China, without Chinese shareholders.
Megaspeed’s rapid rise
Megaspeed was spun off from 7Road Holdings, one of China’s largest video game companies, only months after the United States imposed sweeping restrictions on shipments of advanced AI chips to China.
7Road first sold its Singapore subsidiary to a British Virgin Islands entity called Huang Le Ltd, which was controlled by Huang Le. In November 2023, that entity sold Megaspeed to a Singapore shell company.
Within days, Megaspeed was made an official Nvidia Cloud Partner, a status that gave it preferred access to chips from the leading AI processor maker.
Trade records showed that Megaspeed subsequently imported Nvidia products worth more than 4.6 billion US dollars, despite having held a small cash balance in 2023. The company rented chips at several South-East Asian facilities to Alibaba, the Chinese technology and e-commerce giant.
US officials had separately examined whether Megaspeed was involved in smuggling hardware into China and asked Nvidia to audit the company. Nvidia initially said the equipment had been fully accounted for, but later reporting found that Megaspeed had imported 50,000 more chips than were identified at its data centres, among other discrepancies.
Nvidia said in December 2025 that it would revisit Megaspeed’s data centres, although it has repeatedly declined to say whether further checks took place.
Questions over Huang Le’s links
Huang Le’s background includes private equity and television. She was also listed as a director of Shanghai Hexi, a private equity firm linked to a data centre that Chinese state media has described as the country’s largest.
A holding company founded by Huang Le owned a 48 per cent stake in the project until August 2025. Neither Shanghai Hexi nor the holding company responded to requests for comment.
Huang Le and Jensen Huang were photographed together at a technology conference in Taipei in June 2024. Her current whereabouts are unknown after Singaporean police questioned her last year and barred her from leaving the country, according to people familiar with the matter.
The allegations have intensified scrutiny of Jensen Huang’s long-standing support for selling more Nvidia processors to China, one of the world’s biggest chip markets. Former US intelligence analyst Elly Rostoum told Bloomberg TV: “This tech competition is really happening at the level of private companies, which are headed by CEOs. This seems quite frankly quite careless.”
Jensen Huang has been asked to appear before a joint closed-door meeting of House committees examining Nvidia’s security protocols. The session, requested by three lawmakers who lead national security panels, is scheduled for November 18.
