US officials concluded that Alice Huang, a top executive at the Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed, was a Chinese intelligence asset, and surveillance by American spy agencies showed she had developed a close relationship with Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, The New York Times reported on October 29.
President Donald Trump was briefed on the findings roughly a year ago and chose not to act on them, according to the report, which cited people briefed on the classified surveillance. Jensen Huang has not received a defensive briefing, the warning US agencies sometimes give Americans targeted by foreign intelligence services. The surveillance is continuing, the Times reported, and companies affiliated with Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen also known as Huang Le, bought Nvidia chips this year.
Megaspeed has been under US scrutiny since late 2024, when a Commerce Department official visited its data center in Malaysia and found Nvidia equipment still packed in boxes, suggesting it was moving through the site rather than being installed. Commerce handed its investigation to the Justice Department this year, administration officials told the Times. Singaporean authorities questioned Alice Huang in 2025 and released her.
The company has bought Nvidia chips from the American arm of Inspur, a Chinese server maker whose parent the US has blacklisted, and provided the computing power to Alibaba and other Chinese companies. Its sister company in Malaysia bought at least $4.8 billion of AI equipment containing Nvidia chips and technology between June 2024 and February 2026, according to ImportGenius trade records obtained by the Times. Investigators suspect some of the chips Megaspeed acquired are reaching China illegally. Nvidia still lists Megaspeed as a cloud partner on its website.
Nvidia said Megaspeed was like any other regional customer and that it had previously investigated and debunked claims the company was smuggling chips to China. “Jensen’s interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected,” said John Rizzo, an Nvidia spokesperson, adding that customers like Megaspeed receive “ordinary business information” and “zero information relevant to national security.”
Megaspeed said its “current leadership” takes the matter “extremely seriously” and that outside counsel it retained for an internal investigation has told the US government the company will cooperate fully. Asked about the US conclusion, Liu Chang, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said the United States was pursuing a campaign of “groundless smears and slanders” against China. The White House, the CIA and the National Security Agency declined to comment, and Alice Huang did not respond.
The Times said it could not determine which agencies have monitored Alice Huang, what information she passed to Beijing or its value to China. When Trump was first briefed, officials did not believe Jensen Huang knew of her intelligence role, and it is unclear whether that assessment has changed. Current and former officials told the Times that the relationship between Trump and Jensen Huang has impeded efforts to restrict Nvidia’s chip sales abroad. Trump is due to visit China next month.
Megaspeed is one of several Southeast Asian firms that rent computing capacity to Chinese companies, an arrangement current US export rules do not clearly cover and that the Commerce Department began reviewing this summer. In a separate case, Malaysian customs announced this week a seizure of 30 AI servers, its fifth case this year tied to one suspected smuggling syndicate.
Sources: The New York Times
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By the Control Plane Editorial Team