"Singapore Says U.S. Ignored Its Request for Investigative Assistance After Seizing Alice Huang's Passport"

[Financial News]  

CBS News reported on the 13th (local time), citing sources, that Singaporean authorities seized Megaspeed CEO Alice Huang's passport last June, barred her from leaving the country for eight months, and asked the U.S. government to assist with the investigation, but were ignored. Singapore sought U.S. cooperation because the investigation into Alice Huang could expand to NVIDIA, but received no response from the United States. Alice Huang is someone U.S. intelligence authorities consider a Chinese spy, and her affair with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang came to light.
According to sources, the Singaporean government prevented Alice Huang from leaving the country and asked the United States for help, but the U.S. provided neither a response nor practical assistance. Singapore recently said it had requested investigative cooperation from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice.
The United States reportedly remained unresponsive to Singapore's investigation even after sanctioning Megaspeed for secretly bringing NVIDIA artificial intelligence (AI) chips into China.
According to sources, Singaporean authorities have been investigating since February last year whether Alice Huang and Megaspeed smuggled into China servers made by U.S. AI server company Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI), which were equipped with NVIDIA chips. In the course of the investigation, Alice Huang voluntarily traveled to Singapore last June and was investigated by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The BIS regulates exports of products sensitive to national security and the economy.
Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement on the 12th that U.S. authorities had requested that she be questioned, and that it had planned to make a final determination on whether regulations had been violated based on the questioning.
Singapore police also questioned Alice Huang that same day and decided to seize her passport.
However, a source said Singapore police had been unable to prove any criminal allegations by February this year and had no choice but to return her passport. Instead, she was barred from ever re-entering Singapore on the grounds of providing “inaccurate information”—listing her position at Megaspeed as lower than it was.
Singapore's investigation focused on whether Alice Huang, then Megaspeed's CEO, had violated domestic law by falsely stating the intended use of the SMCI servers she was purchasing.
Another source said Singaporean authorities had come to believe that the servers Megaspeed purchased were sent to Malaysia, and that “some or all” of them went on to China. According to Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs, it had tried to contact SMCI but received “only limited cooperation.” The Trump administration's continued lack of cooperation also ultimately brought the investigation to a halt, the source said.
In this connection, Democrats in the United States are pushing back, saying that President Trump was briefed on the relationship between Jensen Huang and Alice Huang but ignored it, thereby failing to prevent China from accessing information about U.S. high-tech industries.
NVIDIA shares plunged as much as 4.7% early in the trading session amid the fallout from CEO Jensen Huang's resignation, but pared their losses to around 2.5% later in the session.

[email protected] Song Kyung-jae Reporter