U.S. intelligence agencies investigated whether a top executive of a Singapore AI cloud firm accused of illegally selling Nvidia chips to China was also acting as a Chinese spy, anonymous sources told the New York Times. The executive, Alice Huang (also known as Huang Le), worked for Megaspeed and had grown notably close to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at business dinners in the Singapore region.
Jensen Huang (Credits: Nvidia / TechCrunch)
U.S. intelligence agencies had been surveilling Alice Huang for about a year to learn more about her ties with China, the Times reports. The concern, sources said, was that she had grown so close to Jensen Huang that she could have been gathering information about Nvidia’s plans and the CEO’s efforts to convince the Trump Administration to allow the company to ship more advanced technology to China.
Nvidia denies sensitive information was shared
An Nvidia spokesperson denied the characterization, telling TechCrunch that the CEO’s relationship with the Megaspeed executive was the same as with any other regional customer. “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,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The company also stressed: “Our regional cloud customers receive ordinary business information — not sensitive NVIDIA trade secrets — and zero information relevant to national security.”
Megaspeed AI chip export investigation background
In 2025, the Times reported that the Commerce Department had investigated Megaspeed over concerns that it was helping Chinese companies side-step AI chip export regulations by reselling restricted chips to them. Alice Huang was said to be a top executive for the firm at the time. The spy concerns add a new layer to the ongoing scrutiny of how restricted AI chips have been reaching China despite U.S. export controls.
Also Read: Nvidia Releases Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe: Open 30B MoE Model for 40-Language Transcription
Source: TechCrunch — read the full story there.
