Report: Beijing's Top Spy Agency Ran an Operation Targeting Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang

The woman accused of spying on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang reportedly didn't just work for a Singapore-based AI company — she answered directly to China's top intelligence agency. The New York Times reported Friday that the operative, known as Alice Huang or Huang Le, worked for China's Ministry of State Security (M.S.S.) while serving as managing director of Megaspeed, a role she held until at least 2023. Her target was one of the richest men on Earth, Trump's favorite AI CEO, and the man standing between Beijing and the GPUs that power modern AI training.

According to the Times, the operation's mission was twofold: dig into Nvidia's most advanced hardware and lean on Huang to lobby Washington for permission to ship top-tier GPUs to China. Alice Huang allegedly built a 'close relationship' with the Nvidia chief to get there — the Times didn't detail how close. The two Huangs, who are not related, were photographed together starting at least in 2024, right as Megaspeed began its rapid expansion, per the Times. The paper also reported last week that Alice Huang spent at least a year under U.S. surveillance.

The Times noted that Megaspeed's well-funded charge into AI 'appeared to come out of nowhere' to many in the industry. The company has ties to the Chinese military through an investment in a cybersecurity subsidiary of military electronics vendor China Electronics Technology Group, and Alice Huang reportedly has relationships with leaders at Gigabyte, a major assembler of Nvidia chips. Megaspeed also builds data centers in Southeast Asia stocked with Nvidia chips and rents the capacity to Alibaba — a limited end-run around U.S. export controls, according to the Times.

Jensen Huang, meanwhile, has been working the export-control angle from the other side. He successfully petitioned Trump in 2025 to allow more GPU exports to China, then struck a deal to sell limited quantities of Nvidia's second-most-powerful chip there, with Washington taking a 25% cut of the sales. He argued the sales pressure China-based rival Huawei. Nvidia still doesn't sell its flagship Blackwell line to China — Huang pushed for that in 2025 but Trump never signed off, and by May, Huang had reversed course, saying Blackwell and its successor Rubin should not be exported there.

It's unclear how much sway the alleged spy actually had. The Times reported that intelligence agencies briefed Trump on the relationship between the two Huangs last year, but he chose not to act on it, and it's not clear when Jensen Huang learned of the effort. Republicans in Congress have called for him to appear at a closed-door briefing on Nov. 18.

Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo told the Times the company doesn't share classified information with customers, and that those customers don't ask it to lobby the president on export deals. He called the Huangs' interactions 'not unusual' and noted the CEO meets thousands of executives a year. A Chinese embassy spokesperson dismissed the reporting as 'unsubstantiated' and 'nothing but smears against China.' Alice Huang didn't respond to requests for comment, and the CIA and White House declined to comment.