US officials believe that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was romantically involved with Alice Huang, a Singapore-based executive who American intelligence suspects was recruited by Beijing to gather information on him, the Financial Times has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
According to the FT, a memo written by US officials earlier this year, based on information gathered by American intelligence, stated that Jensen Huang had been romantically involved with Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-headquartered customer of Nvidia’s chips. The US intelligence community reportedly believes Alice Huang was recruited as an agent by China’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s main foreign intelligence agency.
The memo was circulated among a small group of senior US government officials shortly before President Donald Trump travelled to Beijing for a summit with Xi Jinping, people familiar with the matter told the FT. The White House and the CIA both declined to comment on the memo when approached by the publication.
Photos and videos showing Jensen Huang together with the Megaspeed executive have circulated on social media, the report notes.
Who Is Alice Huang
Alice Huang, also referred to in some reports by her Chinese name Huang Le, is an executive at Megaspeed, a data centre company that was spun off from a Chinese gaming company in 2023. Megaspeed has come under US scrutiny over allegations that it smuggled advanced Nvidia chips into China in violation of American export controls, though Nvidia says an internal investigation into those allegations turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.
US officials believe Alice Huang was recruited as a spy by China’s Ministry of State Security and that her brief was to gather information on Jensen Huang, including by pushing him to advocate for looser export restrictions that would let Nvidia sell its most advanced AI chips into China. Alice Huang could not be reached for comment by the FT.
Per the FT, Jensen Huang has held several meetings with Trump since the president’s second term began in 2025, and had personally lobbied him earlier this year to allow Nvidia to export its H200 chip to customers in China. US national security officials have reportedly been frustrated by Huang’s efforts on this front. Notably, when Trump flew to China in May for his summit with Xi, Huang was not among the chief executives who accompanied him on Air Force One — only for Trump to learn he’d been left out and call Huang personally, who then flew out to join the group in Alaska.
The disclosure of the memo comes a day after senior Republican lawmakers asked Jensen Huang to appear in a private session before the House committees on China, foreign affairs and intelligence, following a New York Times report that US intelligence had concluded he was the target of a Chinese espionage operation. The scrutiny around Megaspeed and its alleged ties to chip smuggling has intensified as the AI competition between the US and China has grown sharper, with Washington increasingly concerned about Beijing’s ability to get hold of advanced chips that could accelerate China’s military modernisation.
Lawmakers have said they also want to question Huang about the security protocols Nvidia has in place when dealing with customers and partners like Megaspeed.
Nvidia’s Response
Nvidia declined to comment on the government memo or on the claims that its chief executive had an intimate relationship with Alice Huang, when approached by the FT. The company has previously pointed out that Jensen Huang meets “thousands of customer executives every year,” pushing back on the idea that any one relationship was out of the ordinary.
This is far from the first time Jensen Huang’s ties to Chinese business have drawn Washington’s attention — the Nvidia chief has been one of the most vocal advocates for keeping some level of chip access open to China, arguing that cutting the country off entirely only accelerates its push toward building independent, Nvidia-free AI infrastructure.