Nvidia CEO's relationship linked to $7.5 billion in chip shipments to China, report says
A Reuters report cites sources that Jensen Huang's personal relationship with a Chinese businesswoman facilitated the movement of at least $7.5 billion worth of Nvidia chips to Chinese firms.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's personal relationship with a Chinese businesswoman, described by the report as a suspected Beijing spy, is alleged to have helped move at least $7.5 billion worth of the company's chips into China. The Information cited two people familiar with the woman and said the network centred on Shanghai Century Litong, a company founded in June 2023 that obtained preferred cloud partner status with Nvidia by October, giving it priority access to the chips.
Century Litong was initially linked to Alice Huang's sister, Huang Yu, through a founding shareholder later controlled by Huang Yu before she exited the company in 2024. When orders for chips subject to U.S. export restrictions stalled, Alice Huang used her connections with Nvidia and its distributors to secure supplies, moving roughly 240,000 H100, H200 and some A100 chips into China, the report said.
The company rented computing capacity and ran data centres using Nvidia chips, including models barred from sale to China, with some units eventually serving Alibaba, Tencent and smaller Chinese AI labs. Alice Huang also held an executive role at Singapore-registered Megaspeed, which is linked to Century Litong and is under investigation by U.S. authorities for chip shipments from Southeast Asia to China. Megaspeed obtained Nvidia chips by renting capacity from Southeast Asian data centres for Chinese customers or by physically shipping hardware into China; hardware acquired by Speedmatrix, a Malaysian subsidiary of Megaspeed established in 2024, later reached Century Litong.
According to the report, Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, leveraged her relationship with Jensen Huang to build credibility while keeping her role vague and avoiding a paper trail. Nvidia has not commented, and the companies mentioned were not immediately available for comment. Reuters could not independently verify the report. Nvidia's board launched an internal investigation, and the FBI is examining whether Jensen Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. Huang has told employees he was unfaithful to his wife but gave no details about the relationship.