U.S. Believes Nvidia’s Jensen Huang Had a Relationship With a Suspected Chinese Spy

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He runs the most powerful A.I. company in the world, and now the U.S. government believes he was romantically involved with a Chinese spy: According to the Financial Times, U.S. officials believe that Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, had a romantic relationship with Alice Huang, an executive at the Nvidia customer Megaspeed. U.S. intelligence believes she was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security. For Nvidia, worth more than $4 trillion on the stock market, the case has become a problem at the very top.

A Memo Before the Beijing Summit

The report is based on a memo that U.S. officials wrote earlier this year, drawing on information obtained by American intelligence, the FT said. The memo said Mr. Huang had been romantically involved with Alice Huang. The two are not related. It was shared with a small group of top U.S. government officials shortly before President Trump traveled to Beijing in May for a summit with Xi Jinping. The White House and the C.I.A. declined to comment. Photographs and videos showing the two together have circulated on social media.

On Friday, The New York Times reported that Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, worked directly for China’s top spy agency. Her tasks reportedly included persuading the Nvidia chief to lobby for exports of advanced chips to China. The operation dates back to at least 2024, according to The Times. In late October, the newspaper first reported that U.S. intelligence considered the Megaspeed executive a source for Beijing and that she had been in close contact with Jensen Huang.

Megaspeed and the Chips for China

Megaspeed, based in Singapore, was spun off from a Chinese gaming company in 2023. It is suspected of smuggling advanced Nvidia chips into China in violation of U.S. export controls. Nvidia conducted an internal review of the allegations and found no evidence of wrongdoing. The U.S. government has been investigating companies, particularly in Southeast Asia, that are believed to be funneling chips to China. Washington’s concern is that advanced A.I. chips could speed up China’s military modernization.

The case is all the more sensitive because Mr. Huang personally lobbied Mr. Trump earlier this year to let Nvidia sell its H200 chips in China. According to the FT, U.S. national security officials have privately expressed frustration with the Nvidia chief.

A Close Confidant of the President

Mr. Huang has met with Mr. Trump several times since the president began his second term. An episode from May shows how close the two are: When Mr. Trump flew to China for the summit, Mr. Huang was not initially among the chief executives aboard Air Force One. When the president learned of this, he called Mr. Huang personally, according to the FT. The Nvidia chief then flew to Alaska and boarded the presidential plane during a stopover. In September, he attended the state dinner Mr. Trump held for Mr. Xi during his visit to the United States.

Now the case has reached Congress. Top Republican lawmakers have asked Mr. Huang to appear in private before the House committees on China, foreign affairs and intelligence. They want to ask him about the alleged spying operation and about Nvidia’s security protocols. According to The Times, a closed-door briefing is planned for mid-November.

Nvidia Is Silent, Beijing Denies

Nothing has been proved so far, and all of the information comes from anonymous sources. Nvidia declined to comment on the memo or on the assertion that its chief executive had an intimate relationship with Alice Huang. The company has previously said that Mr. Huang meets “thousands of customer executives every year.” John Rizzo, an Nvidia spokesman, told The Times that the company does not share classified information with customers and that the interactions were “not unusual.” Alice Huang could not be reached for comment. The Chinese Embassy in Washington called the reports unsubstantiated and “nothing but smears against China.”