What the New York Times reported about Alice Huang
US officials concluded that Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive first placed under surveillance on suspicion of diverting AI chips to China, was passing information to Beijing while growing close to Nvidia's CEO. The New York Times broke the story on 29 October 2026. Its account rests on people briefed on the classified surveillance, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, is a Chinese citizen and an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore company that runs data centers, the facilities that house the servers used to train and run AI. She shares a surname with Jensen Huang but is not related to him.
US officials began watching her because they suspected she was helping China get around export controls, the US rules that limit sales of advanced AI chips to China. Malaysia has seized AI chip servers moving through Southeast Asia in a separate case (Malaysia seizes 30 AI chip servers at KLIA airport).
According to the Times, the surveillance led officials to conclude that she was an intelligence asset, meaning someone who feeds information to a foreign spy service. The Guardian adds that what she sent to Beijing was commercial information. The same monitoring showed she had built a close relationship with Jensen Huang, which alarmed the White House because of his ties to President Donald Trump.
Trump learned of the findings roughly a year ago, the paper says, and took no action. He did not want to disrupt Nvidia's chip sales or make trade with China any harder.
"Alice Huang or Huang Le, of no relation to the Nvidia CEO, is an executive at a Singapore-based datacenter company called Megaspeed. She had previously been suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips to China, prompting American officials to surveil and monitor her. Those officials have determined that she was acting as a Chinese intelligence asset, passing commercial information to Beijing, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources."／"White House officials are reportedly alarmed by Alice Huang’s access to the head of Nvidia precisely because of the close relationship he has developed with Trump, according to the New York Times."— The GuardianView official source →
How Nvidia answered the report
Nvidia says meeting customers is part of a CEO's job and that the chip diversion allegations against Megaspeed were investigated and debunked last year. A company spokesperson gave statements to the Times and to CNBC on 29 October, addressing both the relationship and the smuggling suspicion.
In Nvidia's telling, Jensen Huang speaks with thousands of executives from customer companies each year, and Megaspeed is just one of its regional cloud providers. Customers of that kind get the usual business information, the company said, and never Nvidia's trade secrets or anything touching national security.
On the smuggling question, the spokesperson said the claims against Megaspeed had been looked into thoroughly and disproved last year. Nvidia added that Washington would warn the company if it saw anyone as a threat to American industry, which CNBC read as a sign that Nvidia had not been told about Alice Huang.
Nvidia also argued that China has little reason to seek its chips through cloud firms like Megaspeed, since Beijing itself has shut out US AI chips to protect local makers. CNBC notes that the US approved H200 sales to China this year, but Chinese regulators stopped the imports. Beijing has also been pressing its companies to switch to domestic chips (China AI Chips: Ding Xuexiang's Reported Warning).
"“Meetings with customers are part of a CEO’s job; Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year,” the spokesperson said in a statement. Megaspeed and customers like it “receive ordinary business information – not sensitive Nvidia trade secrets – and zero information relevant to national security”."— The GuardianView official source →
"The diversion allegations against this regional cloud were thoroughly investigated and debunked last year," the spokesperson said in a statement."／"We're confident that if the U.S. government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know," the spokesperson said."／"Nvidia implied that the U.S. government had not briefed Nvidia on Alice Huang."／"Earlier this year the U.S. government cleared Nvidia's H200 chip to be shipped to China, but Chinese regulators prevented their imports."— CNBCView official source →
Trump vows a close look as China denies the report
Trump still wants Jensen Huang as an advisor unless something to the contrary turns up, while China rejects the report. He spoke to reporters at his Florida residence on 31 October, two days after the story ran.
Trump praised Huang and said he had not known about the specific allegation, according to AFP. He promised the US would look into the matter closely. Asked whether Huang would stay on as an advisor, he said he would like to say yes, provided nothing turns up to change his view.
Huang has advised Trump on AI policy and was one of the tech chief executives who went with him to Beijing in May for talks with Xi Jinping. China, for its part, dismissed the report as groundless speculation.
"China has dismissed the report as groundless speculation."／"I have a lot of respect for Jensen. I didn't know about the specific thing, but I hope he's going to be OK."／"We're going to check it out very closely, the president added."／"Asked if he would retain Huang as an advisor, Trump said: I would like to say yes. I mean, unless we find out something to the contrary"／"Huang has advised Trump on AI policy and was among tech CEOs who joined the US leader on his visit to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in May."— AFPView official source →
An export-control probe that reached the CEO's circle
A probe that began with suspected chip diversion ended up mapping the contacts of a CEO who advises the president, but the spy finding still rests on anonymous sourcing. Officials started out tracking where Nvidia chips were going and came away with a picture of who Jensen Huang talks to.
That makes it worth keeping two things apart as new details arrive. Nvidia says the diversion claim was already cleared, and the intelligence finding has so far been described only by unnamed people to one newspaper. Until a US agency says something on the record, the reported finding and what has been established are not the same thing.
FAQ
- Who is the alleged Chinese spy?
- She is Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Chinese citizen and an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore data center company. She is not related to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
- What does Nvidia say about the meetings?
- Nvidia says meeting customers is part of a CEO's job and that Jensen Huang talks with thousands of customer executives a year. It says customers like Megaspeed get ordinary business information, not trade secrets or anything tied to national security.
- Did Trump know about the finding?
- The New York Times says Trump was briefed roughly a year ago and chose not to act. After the report came out, he said on 31 October that the US would look into it very closely.
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