Chinese spy allegedly cultivated close ties with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, report says

A Chinese government spy cultivated a close relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and passed intelligence back to Beijing — and US President Donald Trump was briefed on the matter but took no action, according to a new report.

US intelligence agencies have determined that Alice Huang, a Chinese national also known by the Chinese name Huang Le, conducted espionage on behalf of the Chinese government while serving as a senior executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based data center company, The New York Times reported Thursday (local time).

Alice Huang had been under investigation by US authorities on suspicion of involvement in circumventing export controls to supply Nvidia's advanced AI chips to China, the Times reported. In the course of monitoring Huang, intelligence agencies also discovered that Huang had developed a close relationship with Jensen Huang.

While surveilling Alice Huang, US intelligence agencies intercepted communications Huang exchanged with an American citizen. Through an "unmasking" procedure to identify the individual, authorities determined the person was Jensen Huang.

Jensen Huang has not been notified by authorities of the possibility of having been a target of Chinese intelligence, according to the report.

The Times said one likely reason is that alerting Jensen Huang could risk exposing the surveillance operation to Alice Huang, who remains under monitoring.

US authorities were concerned that Alice Huang may have obtained information about Trump's policy plans toward China in the course of passing intelligence to Beijing.

The Times said Trump was briefed on the matter about a year ago but took no action.

Analysts suggest Trump may have wanted to avoid disrupting Nvidia's semiconductor sales, which are seen as a key driver of the US economy and stock market, and to sidestep any escalation of trade tensions with China.

However, some senior officials in the Trump administration have raised doubts about whether Jensen Huang was entirely unaware of Alice Huang's intelligence-gathering activities, the Times reported.

China's foreign ministry rebuffed the allegations, calling them "baseless slander and defamation."

Nvidia said in a statement that "Megaspeed is no different from any other ordinary regional customer, and Jensen Huang's customer meetings are a normal part of the duties as CEO."

Meanwhile, Jensen Huang has built a close relationship with the White House since the start of Trump's second administration.

Jensen Huang lobbied Trump at a dinner to ease semiconductor export restrictions on China, and Nvidia donated at least $20 million to the White House ballroom fund. Nvidia also pledged to invest $500 billion in manufacturing in the United States.