U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that a Chinese businesswoman with ties to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was passing information to Beijing, The New York Times reported on October 29. Donald Trump was briefed about the findings roughly a year ago but chose not to act, according to the report.

The woman, Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, is linked to Singapore-based AI computing company Megaspeed. She is not related to Nvidia's chief executive. The intelligence allegations rely on unnamed sources and have not been publicly substantiated; Nvidia disputes suggestions that its customer relationships exposed sensitive information.

Why the relationship drew attention

American officials had been monitoring Alice Huang when they discovered her contact with Jensen Huang, according to Forbes' account of the investigation. Officials were concerned about her access to the head of a company whose chips underpin much of the AI industry, and about his close relationship with Trump.

The report described the president's concerns about disrupting Nvidia's business and complicating trade relations with China. But there is no public explanation from Trump establishing why he took no action on the briefing.

Jensen Huang had not received a defensive briefing, the warning U.S. authorities sometimes give Americans targeted by foreign intelligence services. At the time Trump was first briefed, officials did not believe the Nvidia chief knew about Alice Huang's alleged intelligence activities.

The White House, CIA and National Security Agency declined to comment to the newspaper. Alice Huang did not respond to its request for comment.

Nvidia says these were ordinary customer dealings

Nvidia's fresh response challenges the idea that its relationship with Megaspeed was unusual. The chipmaker said Jensen Huang speaks with thousands of customer executives every year and that regional cloud customers do not receive sensitive trade secrets or national security information.

In a separate statement to Tom's Hardware, a spokesperson said:

"Megaspeed has been no different than many other regional cloud customers. Jensen’s interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected."

The company also addressed earlier allegations that Megaspeed helped divert restricted chips to China. It told CNBC:

"The diversion allegations against this regional cloud were thoroughly investigated and debunked last year."

That is Nvidia's account of the earlier investigation, rather than a newly released finding from U.S. investigators.

Chip access was already under scrutiny

Megaspeed operates in the business of supplying computing power. Its website advertises GPU computing, storage, networking and managed services built around Nvidia hardware. Customers can rent that capacity rather than buy and operate the chips themselves.

U.S. investigators have also suspected that some Nvidia equipment could be physically reaching China through Megaspeed, according to the reporting. Those are different issues: using a cloud service abroad and shipping export-controlled hardware into China are not the same transaction.

The reported investigation began after a Commerce Department official visited a Malaysian data center in 2024 and found Nvidia equipment still in boxes. The account says the Justice Department took over the investigation this year. The boxed equipment raised questions about its destination; it did not itself establish an illegal shipment.

Alice Huang's current role at Megaspeed is also unclear. She has described herself as its chief executive, but company paperwork removed her as managing director after its first eight months, the reporting said.

Megaspeed said it had hired outside lawyers for an internal investigation and notified the U.S. government that it was committed to cooperating, according to the account published by Forbes.

China has rejected the espionage allegation. Tom's Hardware reported that the Chinese Embassy in Washington dismissed it as "groundless smears and slanders." Nvidia, meanwhile, said it regularly receives government updates about parties of concern and acts on them.