Megaspeed's trail runs from a rural lotto shop to a global spy scandal

Huang resigned as chief executive of Nvidia on Friday, following reports of extramarital affairs with an alleged Chinese spy and two company employees. US intelligence agencies believe he was targeted by Alice Huang (no relation), the former director of Megaspeed International. US officials believe he was acting as a Chinese intelligence asset who passed commercial information to Beijing, according to the New York Times. China's foreign ministry has flatly rejected the claim.

The pressure on Megaspeed has been building across the region. Singapore police said last October they were investigating the firm over suspected breaches of domestic laws, after a US senator asked the commerce department to look into whether it diverted Nvidia chips. The ministry of home affairs held Alice Huang's passport from June 2025 until February over potential false declarations tied to the company, then released her with a stern warning and barred her from re-entering. Taiwan has also blocked her, and on Friday Malaysia said it was investigating a Megaspeed International subsidiary over the possible diversion of advanced AI chips to other countries.

Finding the company is another matter. In Sydney, the 10th floor of a city office building carries no signage, mailbox or other trace of Megaspeed Australia, and a receptionist at the shared premises had never heard of it or of listed director Kai Kang, 29. Filings in Delaware and with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission show the affiliates were created in 2024, with Kang as sole company officer and the Singapore-based parent as stockholder. ASIC documents list Kang as born in Shanghai in 1996 and show Megaspeed International owns all 10,000 shares of the Australian arm, for which it paid $1m.

Reuters visited the home address given for the affiliates: a small news agency and lottery retailer in Seymour, Victoria, about an hour north of Melbourne. A woman who identified herself as Kang's mother said she had run the business for about 16 years, that her son was based in Shanghai and knew nothing about the Singaporean company. He doesn't have any business here, she said. Kang, who is also registered as a director of Megaspeed's Malaysian, Indonesian and Thai units, has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Megaspeed has been one of Nvidia's biggest foreign customers over the past three years, purchasing nearly $5bn in AI chips and advanced hardware. The Straits Times reported that Swiftdata, the little-known company that owns it, lists a Singapore address that an interior design firm says it has occupied for more than four years. The New York Times found just two employees at Megaspeed's central business district headquarters, a dilapidated storefront among its Malaysian offices, and an employee in a Kuala Lumpur mall who, asked what the company does, said: It's not clear.

Michael Shoebridge, director of the thinktank Strategic Analysis Australia and a former deputy at the Australian Signals Directorate and the Defence Intelligence Organisation, said key details of Megaspeed's relationship with Chinese intelligence remain unclear. He called it credible to assess the company as a front for Chinese intelligence, while stressing nothing was certain, and said the Australian operation could be a legitimate business or a device to make the Singapore parent look credible. Asio and the office of home affairs minister Tony Burke declined to comment. Acting prime minister Richard Marles told the ABC that the world is seeing more espionage than in a long time, much of it around emerging technologies, and the federal opposition said any potential foreign interference must be taken seriously. Megaspeed did not respond to requests for comment.