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 launched an independent inquiry into reports that Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. The investigation follows allegations involving Alice Huang, with whom the CEO has acknowledged having an affair.

Nvidia is reported to have sold nearly $5bn in AI chips to Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based computing company where Alice Huang formerly worked as managing director. The New York Times reported that Megaspeed’s multibillion-dollar purchases began around that period.

Who is Alice Huang?

US intelligence officials believe Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, worked as a spy for the Chinese government. She is not related to Jensen Huang, despite sharing his surname, and previously held an executive role at Megaspeed, a data centre and cloud computing firm.

AFP said online searches listed earlier work 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 associated with Huang as a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security.

Claims and Beijing’s response

According to The New York Times, the alleged intelligence activity enabled China to obtain advanced Nvidia chips, whose sale to China is restricted by the United States. The report’s claims have not been presented as established findings of Nvidia’s investigation. Liu Chang, a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington, called the allegations a campaign of “groundless smears and slanders” against Beijing, according to The New York Times.

Huang’s family and public image

Jensen Huang met his wife, Lori Mills, at Oregon State University, where both studied electrical engineering. They were lab partners in the early 1980s and married in 1985; Huang later co-founded Nvidia around eight years afterward.

Mills has kept a low profile and sometimes attends public events with her husband. Stephen Witt, author of a biography of Huang, told the BBC the affair was damaging given Huang’s cultivated image as a family man. US president Donald Trump called Huang an “honourable guy” and described the situation as “complex”.