Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has admitted to the board that he had an intimate relationship with Alice Huang, a top executive at chip customer Megaspeed. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, she was spying for Beijing. Huang will remain CEO for the time being.
U.S. intelligence agencies allege that Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, passed information directly to Beijing. However, Nvidia’s board says it has no evidence that national security or trade secrets have been compromised. Nevertheless, the board is investigating all available information. The independent board members are selecting an outside attorney for this purpose. According to spokesperson John Rizzo, Jensen Huang has no role in that selection, The New York Times reports.
In a message to staff, the Nvidia CEO apologized. “I was unfaithful to my wife. There is no excuse for what I did,” Jensen Huang wrote. Huang will remain at the helm during the investigation.
Incidentally, the two are not related.
A billion-dollar client from Singapore
According to her biography, Alice Huang worked as a TV reporter and at Chinese banks. She later became a top executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based data center company. It was founded in 2023 as a spin-off from a Chinese gaming company, shortly after the U.S. announced its first broad ban on the sale of AI chips to China. Since June 2024, Megaspeed has purchased more than $4.8 billion worth of Nvidia chips, making it one of Nvidia’s largest customers in Southeast Asia.
These purchases caught Washington’s attention. A U.S. Department of Commerce employee discovered Nvidia hardware still in its boxes at a Megaspeed data center in Malaysia. The Department of Justice is now investigating possible smuggling to China. No formal charges have been filed yet. Meanwhile, Nvidia has continued to do business as usual with Megaspeed.
Over a year ago, the U.S. government began monitoring Alice Huang. It turned out she was in contact with a U.S. citizen: Jensen Huang. Last spring, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a secret memo drafted. It states that the Chinese Ministry of State Security had recruited her to approach the Nvidia CEO.
From “completely normal” to an apology
Nvidia and Jensen Huang long insisted that nothing out of the ordinary was going on. Just last month, Jensen Huang told Bloomberg that the contacts were entirely normal and business-related.
The pressure has mounted significantly in recent weeks. Congress wanted Huang to testify, and Senator Elizabeth Warren demanded answers from him and the board. Republican Michael McCaul called for an immediate halt to the shipment of advanced AI chips to China.
President Trump is defending Jensen Huang. According to the president, the Nvidia CEO has done nothing wrong and, as far as he’s concerned, will accompany Trump on his upcoming trip to China. Should Huang remain CEO? As far as Trump is concerned, yes.
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