What We Know About the Suspected Spy at the Heart of the Nvidia Scandal as CEO Admits Affair

Investigation and chip sales

Nvidia’s board has opened an independent inquiry into reports that Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. The company is reported to have sold nearly $5bn in AI chips to Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based computing firm where Alice Huang previously served as managing director.

The New York Times reported that Megaspeed’s multibillion-dollar purchases of advanced AI chips began around that period. The report said the buying appeared unexpected to many in the industry. Sales of advanced Nvidia chips to China are otherwise limited by the United States, according to the Times.

Who is Alice Huang?

US intelligence officials believe Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, to be a Chinese government spy. She is not related to the Nvidia CEO, despite sharing his surname, and formerly worked at Megaspeed, a data centre and cloud computing company.

AFP said online searches listed previous jobs at HSBC and Chinese media outlets CCTV and Hunan TV, but the agency could not verify those details. The New York Times reported that a memo circulated among senior policymakers last year cited intelligence describing a Chinese businesswoman affiliated with Huang as a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security.

Beijing rejects the claims

Liu Chang, a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington, told The New York Times the allegations were “groundless smears and slanders” against Beijing. The claims have not been established in the reporting. Liu speculated that China’s government could have threatened to imprison Huang’s family if she did not cooperate, and that she was now in a position to do so.

Huang’s family and public image

Jensen Huang met Lori Mills, now 65, while they studied electrical engineering at Oregon State University. They became lab partners in the early 1980s, married in 1985, and Huang co-founded Nvidia about eight years later. Mills has generally kept a low profile, though she sometimes appears at public events with her husband.

Biographer Stephen Witt told the BBC the affair was damaging because Huang had worked to present himself as a family man and kept his children close. Huang is also known for a rockstar image, wearing leather jackets and spending time with fans. US President Donald Trump called him an “honourable guy” and described the situation as “complex”.