China’s Ministry of State Security recruited a woman to spy on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to learn

Chinese State Security Recruits Managing Director to Target Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang

China’s Ministry of State Security recruited a woman to spy on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to learn more about the company’s advanced hardware, the New York Times reported on Friday.

The Tech TL;DR:
• A Singapore-based managing director named Alice Huang or Huang Le allegedly worked directly for China’s Ministry of State Security while pursuing a close relationship with Nvidia’s CEO.
• The operation aimed to gain intelligence on cutting-edge hardware and push for shipping restricted GPUs to China.
• Republicans in Congress have sought Jensen Huang’s presence for a closed-door briefing regarding the espionage effort for November 18.

The woman, known in previous reports by the names Alice Huang or Huang Le, served as the managing director of Singapore-based Megaspeed until at least 2023. According to the New York Times, Chinese officials tasked her with persuading Huang to lobby for shipping the company’s most advanced graphics processing units to China. The operation dates to at least 2024, when both Huangs were photographed together and Megaspeed began expanding rapidly. The New York Times reported that Alice Huang was under U.S. surveillance for at least a year.

Megaspeed has ties to the Chinese military through an investment in a cybersecurity subsidiary of military electronics vendor China Electronics Technology Group. While rapid expansion is common among AI firms, the New York Times noted that what distinguishes this case is a senior executive working directly for the M.S.S. during that growth period. Sources indicate Alice Huang also maintained relationships with leaders at Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Gigabyte, a major assembler of Nvidia chips. Megaspeed builds data centers in Southeast Asia utilizing Nvidia chips and rents capacity to Alibaba to achieve a limited end-run around U.S. export controls.

Jensen Huang Lobbies Trump on GPU Exports While Intelligence Agencies Brief the White House

Jensen Huang successfully petitioned President Donald Trump in 2025 to permit increased GPU exports to China, later striking a deal to sell limited quantities of the company’s second-most-powerful chip there under an arrangement that includes a 25% U.S. government cut. Huang argued that these sales serve to pressure Huawei, a China-based competitor. Nvidia does not sell its most powerful AI GPU line, Blackwell, to China, and Huang stated by May that neither Blackwell nor its successor Rubin should be exported there.

Intelligence agencies briefed President Trump last year regarding the relationship between the two Huangs, but he chose not to take action, the New York Times reported. It remains unclear precisely when Jensen Huang learned of the espionage effort, or how much influence Alice Huang ultimately exerted.

Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo told the New York Times that the company does not share classified information with customers, and that those customers do not ask it to lobby the president for export deals. Rizzo added that the Chinese government has consistently promoted its own domestic alternatives, such as Huawei, while strictly limiting imports of data center products. He characterized the interactions between the two Huangs as not unusual given that the Nvidia CEO meets thousands of executives annually. A Chinese embassy spokesperson dismissed the reports to the New York Times as unsubstantiated smears, while Alice Huang did not respond to requests for comment. The Central Intelligence Agency and the White House declined to comment.

Republicans in Congress Seek Closed-Door Briefing for November

Republicans in Congress have sought Jensen Huang’s presence for a closed-door briefing on the espionage effort on November 18. Public records do not clarify whether intelligence agencies such as the CIA, NSA, or FBI previously briefed Huang on the matter.