China’s primary intelligence service orchestrated an operation targeting NVIDIA Corp. CEO Jensen Huang, deploying an operative to cultivate access to the tech leader as Beijing sought to pierce U.S. export controls on advanced artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors.
According to intelligence accounts detailed in a New York Times report Friday, China’s Ministry of State Security (M.S.S.) enlisted a woman operating under the names Alice Huang and Huang Le. She previously served as managing director of Megaspeed, a Singapore-based technology firm whose rapid international footprint has raised scrutiny across Western intelligence circles.
The initiative, which dates to at least 2024, aimed to gather commercial intelligence on NVIDIA’s next-generation graphic processing units (GPUs), the essential computing infrastructure underpinning large-scale AI models, and encourage Huang to lobby Washington for looser chip export restrictions to the Chinese market.
Investigators tracked interactions between the two figures, who are not related, after they were photographed together in 2024. Sources described Alice Huang as establishing a close relationship with the NVIDIA chief while under U.S. surveillance for more than a year. She also reportedly leveraged connections with Taiwanese hardware vendor Gigabyte, a key assembler of NVIDIA hardware, while Megaspeed assembled Southeast Asian data centers leasing computing capacity directly to Chinese tech giant Alibaba.
The degree of leverage achieved remains disputed.
In 2025, Huang successfully petitioned President Donald Trump to permit shipments of certain scaled-down processors to China, securing terms under which NVIDIA agreed to remit an unprecedented 25% fee on such transactions to the federal government. Huang consistently defended the sales, arguing that maintaining a commercial presence in China prevents domestic competitors, such as Huawei, from capturing market share.
NVIDIA has stopped short of exporting its tier-one Blackwell architectures or the forthcoming Rubin line. While Huang initially supported Blackwell exports, he reversed that stance earlier this year, aligning with tighter federal restrictions.
U.S. intelligence agencies briefed President Trump on the surveillance operation last year, though the administration took no formal action at the time. Congressional Republicans have now summoned Huang to appear for a closed-door briefing on Nov. 18 to address the security breach and assess any potential counterintelligence vulnerabilities. [NVIDIA is scheduled to announce its quarterly financial results on Nov. 17.]
NVIDIA pushed back firmly against suggestions that proprietary roadmaps or policy decisions were compromised. Company spokesperson John Rizzo told the Times that NVIDIA never distributes sensitive technical data to commercial partners, nor do clients dictate executive lobbying efforts. Rizzo noted that Huang engages with thousands of tech counterparts annually and that interactions between the two figures were typical for the industry.
A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy dismissed the allegations as “unsubstantiated smears,” while Alice Huang, the CIA, and the White House declined to comment.
The revelations coincide with growing alarm over Chinese corporate front companies.
In northwest Beijing, an industrial property registered to New Matrix, a company cleared by the Commerce Department to assemble NVIDIA’s advanced H200 chips, sits entirely abandoned, featuring exposed wiring and vacant halls, underscoring systemic gaps in federal screening procedures designed to police semiconductor supply chains.
U.S. intelligence officials believe Jensen Huang was romantically involved with a woman recruited to spy for Beijing, the Financial Times reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. An internal government memo circulated earlier this year asserted that Huang had a relationship with Alice Huang. American intelligence agencies assess that she was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security.
The memo was shared with senior U.S. officials ahead of a summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The White House, the CIA, and NVIDIA declined to comment on the document. Alice Huang could not be reached.
“The more I learn about the insane relationship between the Trump Administration, Chinese spies, and AI billionaires, the more I’m convinced there is nothing this administration does that isn’t corrupt,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said on X. “Congress will investigate and get answers.”
