A memo that circulated among top Trump administration policymakers last spring cited intelligence that a Chinese businesswoman close to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security, according to a new report.
The businesswoman, Alice Huang, was recruited to collect intelligence on Jensen Huang, those people said. The effort was part of a drive by Beijing’s top spy agency to learn more about American artificial intelligence chips and potentially influence Nvidia to push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China.
The memo and the U.S. assessment that Alice Huang worked directly for China’s main intelligence agency had not been reported before. The two Huangs are not related. The newspaper reported October 29 that U.S. agencies had kept Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen, under electronic surveillance for at least a year. It also reported that President Donald Trump was briefed last year on her relationship with Jensen Huang and chose not to act.
The New York Times reported that Alice Huang was connected to a network of companies and investors clustered around Shanghai and Zhejiang province. The network also has a financial link to the Chinese military establishment through an investment in a cybersecurity subsidiary of China Electronics Technology Group, one of the country’s largest military technology makers.
The October 29 report said a Megaspeed affiliate in Malaysia bought at least $4.8 billion in advanced AI equipment containing Nvidia technology between June 2024 and February 2026, according to trade records. The Commerce Department’s investigation of Megaspeed was handed to the Justice Department this year.
China’s Ministry of State Security is described as a once-overlooked agency that Chinese leader Xi Jinping began investing in after taking power in 2012. It is now many times larger than the CIA, according to the report. Peter Mattis, a former CIA counterintelligence analyst, said the agency has made technology a focus of its activities.
Huang has spent years urging the U.S. government to let chip makers sell AI technology to China, arguing that it would create competition for Huawei and slow its AI development. In 2025, he persuaded Trump to roll back a prohibition on AI chip sales to China, and the administration lifted its block on Nvidia’s H20 chip that July.
Huang and the president later struck a deal to sell Nvidia’s second-most-powerful chip to China, with the United States taking a 25 percent cut of sales. Trump considered allowing sales of the latest Blackwell chip but backed off that idea, according to the reports. At an investor conference in May, Huang said China should not have access to Nvidia’s best technology, including Blackwell and the forthcoming Rubin chip.
Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo said the company does not share classified information with customers and that customers do not ask Nvidia to press the U.S. government to change its China chip policy. He said the Chinese government has promoted domestic alternatives, including Huawei, and strictly limited imports of Nvidia’s data center products.
Nvidia has maintained that Jensen Huang’s interactions with Alice Huang were “not unusual or unexpected” and match the meetings he holds with Nvidia’s many customers. A company spokesperson said its regional cloud customers receive ordinary business information, not trade secrets, and nothing relevant to national security. Nvidia also said it thoroughly investigated and debunked the diversion allegations against Megaspeed last year.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy, Liu Chang, called the report unsubstantiated and smears against China. Alice Huang did not respond to multiple attempts to reach her for comment in recent days. Spokeswomen for the White House and the CIA declined to comment.
Megaspeed responded to reports in October that its current management hired outside counsel and plans to cooperate with U.S. authorities. Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs said October 31 that it had not investigated Alice Huang’s alleged ties to Chinese intelligence or her relationship with Jensen Huang. The ministry said its probes into Megaspeed itself are ongoing.
Three House Republican committee chairs have asked Jensen Huang to appear later this month for a joint, closed-door briefing. The letter, dated Nov. 4 and made public Thursday, is signed by Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast of Florida, Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman John Moolenaar of Michigan, and Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford of Arkansas.
The lawmakers requested the briefing for Nov. 18, the day after Nvidia is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings. They want to discuss his interactions with Alice Huang and Nvidia’s security protocols against foreign adversary espionage. Jensen Huang has until Nov. 11 to confirm the date or offer alternative availability. Nvidia did not directly say whether he will attend.
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