Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Was Targeted by Alleged Chinese Spy, NYT Reports

U.S. officials have concluded that Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Chinese citizen and senior executive at Singapore-based data-center company Megaspeed, was a Chinese intelligence asset passing information to Beijing, The New York Times reported on October 29. Surveillance of her reportedly showed that she had developed a close relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

The Times said President Donald Trump was briefed on the findings roughly a year ago and chose not to act. Its account is based on interviews with people briefed on the surveillance, who spoke anonymously because the findings are classified, as well as other officials, industry executives and analysts. Clash Report has not independently verified the claims. The Times did not report that Jensen Huang knew of any intelligence activity.

Surveillance Led to the Nvidia CEO

According to the Times, U.S. officials already suspected that Alice Huang was helping China evade limits on its access to advanced AI chips. People with knowledge of the matter said U.S. agencies were conducting electronic surveillance of her, and that it showed she was in contact with an American citizen.

U.S. intelligence agencies generally cannot surveil American citizens without a court order, the Times explained. When a citizen’s communications turn up in surveillance, he or she can be identified to government officials who show a need for the information, through a process known as unmasking. In this case, the Times said, unmasking identified Jensen Huang as the American.

The surveillance continues, people briefed on it told the Times, and companies affiliated with Alice Huang bought Nvidia chips again this year. The Times said it could not determine which intelligence agencies were monitoring her, what prompted the surveillance, what information she passed to China or how valuable it was. The White House, the CIA and the National Security Agency declined to comment.

Trump Briefed but Took No Action

The Times reported that Trump was wary of disrupting Nvidia’s chip sales, which are helping to drive the economy and the stock market, and of further complicating trade with China. Jensen Huang has lobbied the administration to loosen rules on AI companies and chip sales to China, according to the Times.

When Trump was first briefed, U.S. officials did not believe the Nvidia chief knew that Alice Huang was gathering information for Beijing, the Times reported. It said it is unclear whether intelligence officials have since updated that assessment, and that some senior Trump administration officials doubt Huang could have remained unaware of what they concluded was her intelligence-gathering role.

People briefed on the surveillance said Huang has not received a defensive briefing, the kind of warning sometimes given to Americans targeted by foreign intelligence services. The Times said it was unclear whether concern about protecting the surveillance played a role, since telling him could have alerted Alice Huang that she was being watched.

The Times said the discovery raised questions about whether she could learn Trump’s thinking on chip policy through Huang, an issue likely to come up when the president visits China next month, and about whether she could glean information about Nvidia.

Taipei Photos and the Megaspeed Link

Photos posted to LinkedIn in June 2024 showed Jensen Huang with Alice Huang at a bar in Taipei after a technology trade show, weeks before Megaspeed began its Nvidia purchases, the Times reported. In May 2025, they were seen together again leaving a Taipei restaurant after a business dinner with other AI suppliers. The Times described those details in an article last October.

The Times said it is not clear when the two first met. A person who viewed her social media feed said Alice Huang posted photos of herself with Jensen Huang before the Times began reporting on her role. Tech investors told the Times that she and her associates promoted their connection to Huang to raise funds.

Alice Huang has described herself as Megaspeed’s chief executive, while the company listed her as managing director for its first eight months before removing her from that role in corporate filings. A person familiar with the company said she became less active after the U.S. investigations. The Times said it is unclear how closely she is still connected to Megaspeed.

Megaspeed Under U.S. Investigation

Megaspeed buys Nvidia chips to build data centers and rents out the computing power to Chinese companies including Alibaba, the Times reported. It has bought chips from the U.S. arm of Inspur, a Chinese server maker whose parent company the United States has blacklisted for funneling technology to the Chinese military. U.S. officials believe the firm is part of a wider effort by Chinese companies to access AI chips, and investigators suspect some chips acquired by Megaspeed are illegally reaching China, the Times said.

Megaspeed’s sister company in Malaysia bought at least $4.8 billion worth of advanced AI equipment containing Nvidia chips between June 2024 and February 2026, according to ImportGenius trade records cited by the Times. The newspaper called it an exceptional sum for a small, obscure company.

The U.S. government has investigated Megaspeed since late 2024, when a Commerce Department official visited its Malaysian data center and found Nvidia equipment still packed in boxes. Singapore also investigated, and in 2025 it questioned Alice Huang before releasing her. The Commerce probe was handed to the Justice Department this year, administration officials told the Times. The newspaper did not report any charges. Megaspeed split from the Chinese gaming and cloud company 7Road in 2023, the Times said in earlier reporting.

The United States has restricted exports of the most advanced Nvidia chips to China since 2022, and some firms have been charged with smuggling them. Others have legally built data centers in Southeast Asia that serve Chinese customers, a practice the Biden administration restricted and Trump rolled back, the Times said. The administration is weighing whether to tighten the rules again. Huang has said U.S. export restrictions cost Nvidia its China market.

Nvidia, Megaspeed and Beijing Respond

Nvidia told the Times that Megaspeed is like any other regional customer and that the company had previously investigated and debunked claims that it was smuggling chips to China. Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo said: “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.”

Rizzo said Nvidia is “confident that if the U.S. government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know.” Customers like Megaspeed, he added, “receive ordinary business information — not sensitive Nvidia trade secrets — and zero information relevant to national security.”

Megaspeed told the Times that its “current leadership” takes the matter “extremely seriously and is committed to getting to the facts behind these allegations.” It said outside counsel has been retained to conduct an internal investigation and that it has told the U.S. government it is committed to cooperating.

Alice Huang did not respond to the Times’ requests for comment. Liu Chang, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said the United States was pursuing a campaign of “groundless smears and slanders” against China.