Nvidia has brought in outside lawyers to examine founder Jensen Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at a company that buys its chips, after US intelligence reportedly concluded she was working for Chinese intelligence. The company says it has no reason to believe that corporate secrets or national security were compromised. China has rejected the allegation that she was a spy.
The controversy followed a New York Times report last month describing a close relationship between the Nvidia chief and Alice Huang, who is unrelated to him. On Sunday, Jensen Huang acknowledged an affair in a letter to employees and apologised for hurting his wife and children. Nvidia had previously described their interactions as neither unusual nor unexpected.
By November 11, Nvidia had lost $430bn in market value, a decline of 5.5%. That loss reached approximately $600bn early on November 12 after reports that directors were considering whether to remove Huang. Major questions remain unresolved, including whether the board knew about the intelligence assessment and what evidence supported it. The underlying intelligence is classified, and the agency responsible for surveillance has not been identified.
Alice Huang formerly worked at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based computing business that purchases Nvidia chips and rents computing capacity to Chinese companies. US authorities were already investigating whether it had circumvented restrictions by smuggling chips into China. Both Megaspeed and Nvidia deny those allegations. According to the Financial Times, Huang and business partners acquired Megaspeed in 2023, seeking to develop a datacentre business and promoting their access to Nvidia chips to investors.
The Financial Times reported that Alice Huang was born in rural Hunan and worked at China’s state broadcaster, HSBC and Citic Securities before joining investment management company Hexi in 2015. There she met financier Kang Wei, with whom she began a romantic relationship and pursued AI business ventures. The earliest known photograph of her with Jensen Huang dates to a Taipei technology event after-party in 2024. When their relationship began remains unknown.
Nigel Inkster, a former senior British intelligence official, said the facts had not been established. He suggested that, if Alice Huang worked for Beijing, recruitment after intelligence officials discovered the relationship appeared more likely than a planned romantic approach. What information she might have supplied has not been established publicly.
The allegations have also drawn attention to Jensen Huang’s ties to Donald Trump. The New York Times reported that Trump received briefings about the matter, including a warning connected to Huang joining a China-bound delegation in May. On Monday, Trump said he had not known about the relationship at the time of that trip. He acknowledged an FBI investigation involving Huang and defended him as an “honourable guy”. Trump is scheduled to meet Xi Jinping later this month.
