The Chinese ‘spy’ accused of honey-trapping the boss of the world’s biggest AI chip firm had bragged that she could secure his firm’s technology despite a US export ban.
Alice Huang pitched a deal to Beijing investors to secure Nvidia’s coveted graphics processing units (GPUs) last year.
Ms Huang said she had ‘no problem securing GPUs’, the Financial Times reported, even though Chinese firms are barred from obtaining them by the US.
She did not disclose her relationship with Nvidia’s married chief executive Jensen Huang, who is no relation, during the investment pitch for a data centre project in Singapore.
Washington imposed strict limits on the US firm’s exports to thwart attempts by Chinese president Xi Jinping to become the leading AI superpower by 2030.
Nvidia went into meltdown on Monday after Mr Huang admitted having an affair with Ms Huang months after she was declared a Chinese spy by US intelligence.
On Sunday, the 63-year-old said in a memo to staff: ‘I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did.’
The company has commissioned an independent probe into the affair. It lost around £292billion of its value – or 9 per cent – in minutes on Monday, equal to the combined value of HSBC and Barclays. Its shares recovered, but it was still down by 4 per cent by the evening, making it worth around £3trillion.
Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang is pictured at a party with suspected Chinese spy Alice Huang in June 2024
Mr Huang admitted he was ‘unfaithful’ to his wife, Lori Huang, who he is pictured with her during a visit to the White House on September 24
Ms Huang apparently worked as a Chinese state TV reporter and had a stint in private equity before she formed Megaspeed International in 2023, according to unverified internet biographies.
Within a year the previously dormant firm became the largest buyer of Nvidia’s chips in south-east Asia. Weeks before they started purchasing the chips she was seen drinking whisky with Taiwan-born American businessman Mr Huang in Taipei – the first known pictures of them together.
Megaspeed’s imports topped £3.6billion as it opened facilities across south-east Asia and rented the firm’s technology to the Chinese tech giant Alibaba.
The investments set off alarm bells in Washington and Ms Huang was placed under surveillance at the end of 2024. Earlier this year she was named as a spy in a US intelligence report.
However, Donald Trump – a close ally of Mr Huang – did nothing, the New York Times reported.
Theresa Fallon, director of the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies in Brussels, said: ‘It is always amazing to see how so-called intelligent people fall for a Chinese honey-trap.’
Rush Doshi, an assistant security studies professor at Georgetown University in Washington, said: ‘If the reporting is right, this is the most significant story in US-China policy in years.
‘If the US knew Jensen Huang had a romantic relationship with a Chinese spy and looked the other way, all while that spy ran a company backdooring US compute to China, it warrants a Congressional investigation.’
America restricted firms from exporting advanced Nvidia chips to China in 2022, but some smuggled them illegally over the border. Others legally set up businesses that buy large numbers of chips to build data centres in south-east Asia that serve Chinese firms.
Ms Huang apparently worked as a Chinese state TV reporter and had a stint in private equity before she formed Megaspeed International in 2023, according to unverified internet biographies
Mr Huang is pictured with President Donald Trump last month
Megaspeed, based in Singapore, appeared to be a middle man, buying Nvidia chips and providing computing power to Chinese firms operating outside the country. However, it was suspected of smuggling the tech into China.
Mr Huang lobbied Mr Trump to relax export laws on chips, and when a US delegation visited China last May he was initially left off the list due to concerns about his ‘influence on the President’s policy of only lightly regulating AI’.
Silicon Valley giants defended the tech tycoon last night. Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, a tech investment firm, tweeted that Mr Huang was ‘irreplaceable for America’s AI leadership’, adding: ‘My guess is there was no bad intention.’ SpaceX boss Elon Musk said: ‘I agree.’
Wall Street hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said: ‘Jensen Huang is human. And he is an incredible human… even incredible humans make mistakes.’
China denied Ms Huang was a spy and accused the US of ‘groundless smears and slanders’.
Nvidia said it ‘prioritises US national and economic security’ but ‘has no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised.
It added that Mr Huang was co-operating with its investigation and would remain as chief executive pending the review.
