“U.S. Government Believes NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang Had a Romantic Relationship With a Chinese Spy”

[Financial News]  

The U.S. government believes that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang had a romantic relationship with a woman recruited as a Chinese spy, the Financial Times (FT) reported on the 7th (local time), citing sources.
According to the sources, U.S. officials wrote in a memo prepared early in the year, based on information obtained through intelligence agencies, that Huang had a romantic relationship with Alice Huang, CEO of the Singapore-headquartered customer company Megaspeed International.
U.S. intelligence agencies believe Alice Huang was recruited as a spy by an intelligence agency of China’s Ministry of State Security.
The memo was shared only among a small group of top officials shortly before President Donald Trump headed to Beijing, China, for a summit with President Xi Jinping.
Photos and videos of Jensen Huang and Alice Huang are circulating on social media.
NVIDIA declined to comment on the memo, saying that CEO Huang meets with thousands of executives from customer companies every year.

Democrats signaled that they would launch a congressional investigation.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who is set to become chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next January, described the case as “a crazy relationship between the Trump administration, Chinese spies and an artificial intelligence (AI) billionaire” and vowed to open an investigation. Coons said on social media platform X, “Congress will investigate (the case) and find answers.”
Megaspeed International is currently under investigation in the United States on suspicion of violating U.S. export controls and smuggling NVIDIA’s advanced chips into China. NVIDIA also launched an internal investigation, but has previously concluded in its own assessment that it found no wrongdoing.
The memo was leaked the day after Republican congressional leaders informally asked Jensen Huang to appear before House committees on China, foreign relations and intelligence. House Republican leaders plan to ask CEO Huang to explain a New York Times (NYT) report that he had become a target of a Chinese espionage operation, and to outline NVIDIA’s internal security procedures.

Megaspeed International spun off from a Chinese gaming company in 2023. The U.S. government has been investigating companies, particularly those in Southeast Asia, on the belief that they have smuggled advanced semiconductors into China.
The United States and China are currently competing fiercely for AI supremacy. The United States is particularly concerned that China will accelerate its military modernization with advanced semiconductors.
According to the FT, U.S. national security officials privately expressed their bewilderment over Jensen Huang. Huang had personally persuaded President Trump early in the year to obtain authorization for NVIDIA to export H200 chips to China.
Jensen Huang met with the president several times last year after the Trump administration’s second term began. He also traveled to China with Trump for the U.S.-China summit in Beijing last May.
In particular, CEO Huang was not in Washington when the president boarded Air Force One with business leaders and took off. After Trump noticed, he contacted Huang, picked him up in Alaska, the intermediate stop, and continued on to China. Jensen Huang also attended the state dinner at the White House in September, held to coincide with President Xi’s visit to the United States.

[email protected] Song Kyung-jae Reporter