China allegedly recruited Megaspeed exec to spy on NVIDIA CEO
What's the story
Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, was recruited by China's intelligence agency to spy on Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) hired her to gather intel on American AI chips and possibly persuade the company to make its most advanced chips available in China. Megaspeed is a client of NVIDIA's, and Alice has ties with top executives in the AI chip industry.
Strategic ties
Alice's relationship with AI chip executives
Alice Huang, who is not related to Jensen, has close ties with executives at Gigabyte and other top players in the AI chip industry.
The New York Times reported that she was recruited by China's MSS to spy on Jensen.
The report also revealed that President Donald Trump had been informed about their relationship last year but took no action.
Congressional inquiry
House committees summon Jensen for briefing
In light of the revelations, three House committees have summoned Jensen for a joint, closed-door briefing on his "interactions" with Alice. The move comes as part of the briefing.
Meanwhile, NVIDIA spokesperson John Rizzo denied that the company shares classified information with customers or that they ask it to lobby the president for export deals.
Corporate connections
Alice worked for MSS during Megaspeed's growth
The NYT report also highlighted that Alice Huang worked directly for the MSS during Megaspeed's rapid growth.
The company has ties to the Chinese military through an investment in a cybersecurity subsidiary of China Electronics Technology Group.
Megaspeed builds data centers in Southeast Asia with NVIDIA chips and rents capacity to Alibaba, circumventing US export controls.
Export impact
Alice's influence remains unclear
While it remains unclear how much influence Alice Huang had, Jensen Huang did manage to convince Trump in 2025 to allow more GPU exports to China.
Later, he also struck a deal to sell limited quantities of its second-most-powerful chip there.
However, Blackwell and its successor Rubin are not exported to China due to lack of approval from Trump despite Jensen advocating for their sales in 2025.