U.S. intelligence reportedly surveilled a Singapore executive close to Nvidia’s CEO on suspicion of Chinese espionage
The New York Times reported that American agencies spent roughly a year monitoring Alice Huang of Megaspeed, suspecting she passed commercial information to Beijing while cultivating ties with Jensen Huang.
A New York Times report said U.S. intelligence agencies surveilled Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, an executive at Singapore-based cloud company Megaspeed, on suspicion she was a Chinese intelligence asset who had developed a close relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
Alice Huang is of no relation to Jensen Huang. Megaspeed was previously suspected of helping companies evade U.S. export controls on Nvidia AI chips, which are restricted from shipment to China. The surveillance lasted about a year, according to the Times. Alice Huang was photographed as one of multiple people with Jensen Huang during various business dinners in the Singapore region.
Nvidia said Jensen Huang speaks with thousands of customer executives every year and that his interactions with Alice Huang were not unusual. The company said regional cloud customers receive ordinary business information, not sensitive Nvidia trade secrets, and zero information relevant to national security. Nvidia also said the diversion allegations against Megaspeed were investigated and debunked. Nvidia implied that the U.S. government had not briefed the company on Alice Huang. “We’re confident that if the U.S. government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know,” a Nvidia spokesperson said.
Why officials were alarmed
Jensen Huang has developed a close relationship with President Donald Trump as the U.S. government attempts to defend its position as a leader in AI development. He has appeared with Trump at state dinners, AI summits, and international trips, while pushing for certain Nvidia chips to get a green light to be shipped to China. The Trump administration has imposed restrictions on exports of advanced AI chips to China as a matter of national security. The concern, according to sources cited by the Times, was that Alice Huang could have been gathering information about Nvidia’s plans and Jensen Huang’s efforts to convince the Trump administration to allow it to ship more advanced technology to China.
Earlier this year the U.S. government cleared Nvidia’s H200 chip for shipment to China, but Chinese regulators blocked imports. The H200 is Nvidia’s Hopper generation chip, not the current faster Blackwell generation used by American AI developers. Last year, Nvidia wrote off about $4.5 billion in Chinese-tuned AI chips. Nvidia said the Chinese government is not looking for Nvidia products from regional clouds like Megaspeed.
One report states that American officials determined Alice Huang was acting as a Chinese intelligence asset passing commercial information to Beijing, while the other reports frame the matter as suspicion rather than a concluded determination. There was no on-record response from U.S. intelligence agencies, the White House, or the Commerce Department. There was also no response from Megaspeed or Alice Huang. Nvidia’s powerful chips are a cornerstone of the AI boom, and the company has become a central player in the U.S.-China rivalry over advanced technology.
Sources & methods
- The Guardian, reporting on the New York Times story Archived Oct 29, 2026
- CNBC, reporting on the New York Times story and Nvidia's response Archived Oct 29, 2026
- TechCrunch, reporting on the New York Times story and Nvidia's response Archived Oct 29, 2026
This article synthesizes three secondary reports, from The Guardian, CNBC, and TechCrunch, all based on a New York Times investigation citing unnamed sources briefed on U.S. intelligence surveillance. Where the three reports diverge on whether Alice Huang was conclusively identified as a Chinese intelligence asset, the article attributes each framing to its source.
