Alice Huang's husband joked she was Jensen Huang's 'personal secretary,' sources say

The person who introduced Alice Huang — identified as former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's alleged affair partner and suspected Chinese spy — to Huang was her own husband, Chinese businessman Kang Wei, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday (local time), according to Yonhap.

According to the report, Jensen Huang and Kang Wei had known each other for about a decade.

Over the past 10 years, Alice Huang and Kang Wei pursued lucrative business opportunities across a range of sectors, including video game companies, pharmaceutical acquisitions and cloud computing.

Their most recent focus, amid all of this, was Nvidia's AI chips.

Kang Wei had worked as a star fund manager in China before striking out on his own, founding Shanghai-based investment firm Hexi Capital in 2010. A fellow graduate told the Journal that Alice Huang completed a master's program in media management at Hong Kong Baptist University in the late 2000s.

It remains unclear when Kang Wei and Alice Huang first met, but corporate registration records suggest she began co-managing Hexi Capital around 2016.

Hexi Capital invested in a range of technology companies, including video game firms, and those ties gave Kang Wei an entry point to Jensen Huang in the 2010s — a period when Nvidia's core business was developing graphics chips for gaming.

A person who worked at one of Kang Wei's portfolio companies and helped connect him with Jensen Huang said the two met in Asia. A source familiar with the couple said Kang Wei appeared to tolerate his wife's romantic relationship with Jensen Huang and openly spoke about the closeness between the two.

People familiar with the matter said Kang Wei had jokingly referred to his wife as Jensen Huang's "personal secretary."

The Financial Times also covered the relationship between Kang Wei and Alice Huang on Tuesday (local time), though the British newspaper was more cautious in its characterization, describing the two as a "couple."

According to the FT, Kang Wei and Alice Huang were regarded as an influential couple in Chinese financial circles, and some people who knew them personally believed they were married.

The report also described Alice Huang as sociable and well-connected, while Kang Wei was seen as comparatively introverted.

Jensen Huang, engulfed in a series of scandals, abruptly stepped down Thursday (local time).

Nvidia's board announced in a statement that day that he had resigned immediately from his roles as president, CEO and board director, Yonhap reported.

Although the board used the word "resign," the move is widely seen as an effective dismissal given the controversies surrounding him.

The board convened Thursday to discuss his future at the company.

The board expressed gratitude, saying Jensen Huang had made "immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry," but did not disclose the specific reason for his departure. It also gave no indication of what role, if any, he might play going forward or what relationship he would maintain with the company.

The board named Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Colette Kress as interim CEO.

It also said it had begun a formal search for a permanent CEO and would consider both internal and external candidates.

"Together with our leadership, I will build on the exceptional foundation Jensen has established over the past 33 years," Kress said in a statement. "We will continue to advance the work that has made Nvidia a leader in accelerated computing and AI."

Nvidia now faces the challenge of filling the void left by Jensen Huang, who led the company for 33 years since its founding. How the situation unfolds is expected to send ripples across the global AI semiconductor industry.