US Memo Links Nvidia CEO To Alleged Chinese Spy
The Financial Times reports, citing unnamed sources, that US officials believe Jensen Huang had a romantic relationship with a Megaspeed executive that US intelligence says China recruited; Nvidia declines to comment on the claim
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - The US government believes Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang had a romantic relationship with a Chinese woman whom US intelligence says was recruited to spy for China, the Financial Times reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. No charges have been announced, and the memo has not been published.
According to the FT, US officials wrote a memo earlier this year, based on intelligence, saying Huang was romantically involved with Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based customer of Nvidia. The people said US intelligence believes she was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s main intelligence agency.
The memo was shared with a small group of top US officials shortly before President Donald Trump traveled to Beijing in May for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The White House and the CIA declined to comment, and Alice Huang could not be reached for comment.
Nvidia declined to comment on the memo or on the claim of a relationship, and has said Jensen Huang meets thousands of customer executives every year. The two are not related.
The report follows a New York Times story on October 29 saying US intelligence concluded that Alice Huang had passed information to Beijing while developing a close relationship with Huang, whose identity surfaced when US agencies monitoring her communications unmasked an American contact.
Nvidia called the interactions “not unusual or unexpected” and said diversion allegations had been “thoroughly investigated and debunked,” while Megaspeed said it had hired lawyers and would cooperate with US authorities. China’s Foreign Ministry denied the report. Trump said on October 31 he would “check closely,” and called Huang “brilliant.”
Megaspeed has been under US scrutiny for allegedly helping smuggle advanced Nvidia chips into China in violation of export controls, and Nvidia previously ran an internal probe that found no evidence of wrongdoing.
The FT said top Republican lawmakers on Friday asked Huang to appear in private before the House China, foreign affairs and intelligence committees to answer questions about the New York Times report and about Nvidia’s security protocols. US national security officials have privately expressed frustration with Huang, the FT said, who lobbied Trump this year to allow exports of the H200 chip to China.
Huang attended the September state dinner Trump held for Xi, and flew to Alaska in May to board Air Force One after Trump learned he was not on the traveling delegation.