- Jensen Huang admitted to being unfaithful and apologized to Nvidia employees and family
- Alice Huang is suspected by US officials of spying for China and influencing Nvidia sales
- Her company Megaspeed bought $4.8 billion in Nvidia AI equipment from 2024 to 2026
Jensen Huang told Nvidia employees on Sunday that he had been unfaithful to his wife of 41 years. He apologised to his family, asked for privacy and pledged to cooperate with an independent investigation.
His email did not name the woman. The New York Times reported that he had already acknowledged an intimate relationship with her to Nvidia's board.
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Her name is Alice Huang. She shares his surname but is unrelated to him. By June 2024, she was sitting beside the Nvidia chief at a bar in Taipei, drinking whisky with executives from Gigabyte and NetThunder. A photo appeared on LinkedIn. In May the following year, after a dinner with AI suppliers, she stood behind him outside a Taipei restaurant as he spoke to reporters. By then, a company she had helped run was buying advanced Nvidia equipment on a scale that would draw the attention of Washington.
US intelligence officials came to believe Alice Huang was passing information to Beijing. A classified memo, described by the Times and the Financial Times, said China's Ministry of State Security had recruited her to gather intelligence on Nvidia's chief and potentially influence the company's push to sell its most advanced chips to China. Alice Huang did not respond to the Times' requests for comment. No public charges against her have been reported.
The Résumé and the Company Records
Alice Huang also goes by Huang Le. A profile attributed to her in a Chinese private-fund database describes a career that took her from reporting jobs at Hunan TV and state broadcaster CCTV to HSBC, where she was listed as an assistant to the president of its private banking division, and then to a vice presidency at CITIC Securities. The New York Post asked a Hunan TV executive about her. He said he had never heard of her. The paper found no profile for her on CCTV's website.
Corporate filings offer firmer ground. A Singapore company called 7Road International, with roots in Chinese mobile gaming, changed its name to Megaspeed in March 2023, when Huang came on as a managing director. Ownership passed to Huang Le Limited that month and to a newly incorporated company called Swiftdata in November. By then she had resigned as a director. The following June, there she was at the industry gathering in Taipei, seated next to Jensen Huang.
There was another trail through Shanghai's investment world. A profile linked Huang to Shanghai Hexi Investment Management. The Times traced a network of companies and investors around Shanghai and Zhejiang that moved from mobile gaming into AI data centres. It reported that the network held an investment in a cybersecurity subsidiary of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, a major Chinese military technology conglomerate. Investors familiar with the business told the paper that Huang and her associates used her connection to the Nvidia chief to raise money.
The $4.8 Billion Trail
Megaspeed set up a Malaysian subsidiary, Speedmatrix, in early 2024, with two offices in Johor. An early account put Megaspeed's commitment to Nvidia products at close to $2 billion. Trade records cited by the Times put the scale of the buying in sharper focus. Megaspeed's Malaysian sister company bought at least $4.8 billion worth of advanced AI equipment containing Nvidia chips between June 2024 and February 2026.
Megaspeed developed data centres in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia and Indonesia, and supplied computing power to Chinese customers including Alibaba. A company in China could rent time on Nvidia hardware abroad without having the chips shipped to China. US investigators were pursuing a separate suspicion that some of the hardware had also been diverted there illegally. Nvidia said it complied with the law and had found no evidence of smuggling. Megaspeed was still listed as a cloud partner in late October. By Sunday, The Information reported, it was no longer listed as a preferred partner.
The American on the Intercept
The US Commerce Department began looking into Megaspeed toward the end of the Biden administration. While monitoring Alice Huang electronically, US intelligence agencies picked up contact with an American whose name was initially masked. Officials used a process known as unmasking to learn his identity. It was Jensen Huang.
Donald Trump was briefed roughly a year before the story became public. The Times reported that he took no action, wary of disrupting Nvidia sales, rattling markets and complicating trade with China. Officials who first briefed him did not believe Jensen Huang knew of Alice Huang's alleged intelligence role. Some senior administration officials later questioned whether he could have remained unaware. He received no formal warning of the kind sometimes given to Americans targeted by foreign intelligence, and the surveillance was still underway in late October, according to the Times.
By the spring of 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had overseen the preparation of a classified memo drawing on the surveillance, the Times reported. It reached senior officials before Trump's May summit with Xi Jinping. People familiar with the memo told the Financial Times that it described a romantic relationship. The reporting leaves open whether Beijing allegedly recruited Alice Huang before she joined Megaspeed or after she already knew Nvidia's chief. Even the date of their first meeting remains unclear.
By September, Jensen Huang was at the head table of the White House state dinner for Xi. Nvidia had given at least $20 million to Trump's ballroom fund, the Times reported, and Huang had become one of the most influential advocates for easing chip restrictions. Current and former officials told the paper that his access to Trump had made tighter controls harder to pursue and that some Commerce Department inquiries and proposed sanctions had stalled. Congress was already pressing the administration over chip sales to China, including a plan to allow sales of Nvidia's H200 under an arrangement involving a 25% payment to the US government.
Ten Days From ‘Completely Normal' to an Apology
When the Times published its first account on October 29, Nvidia described the meetings as routine contact with a customer. Its spokesman said customers received ordinary business information and had no access to trade secrets. Jensen Huang told Bloomberg that his interactions with Alice Huang had been related to Megaspeed and were “completely normal and not unusual.”
Ten days later, Nvidia's board said independent directors, assisted by outside counsel, would investigate whether its chief executive had been targeted by foreign intelligence. The board said it had no reason to believe US national security or company secrets had been compromised and expressed confidence in Huang. He remains chief executive. That same day, he sent employees this email.
To my colleagues at NVIDIA,
I owe my family and all of you an apology.
I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.
Throughout my life, my family has given me love and support. They deserve my honesty and loyalty. Instead, I let them down and damaged the life we built together. I take full responsibility for what I did and the hurt I caused, and I accept the criticism that comes with it.
To my wife and family: I love you. I know an apology cannot undo what I have done. I hope our family will heal and that, over time, I can earn back your trust.
To my colleagues at NVIDIA, including those I have worked alongside for decades, and to our board, partners, and shareholders around the world: you deserve better from me. Leading NVIDIA is the privilege of my life. My responsibility is to serve you and be worthy of your trust. I have fallen short of that responsibility. I am fully committed to NVIDIA and will work to earn back your confidence.
Regarding the national security concerns raised in news reports, NVIDIA's Board of Directors has initiated an independent investigation. I support the investigation and will cooperate fully. I love our country and our company. I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America's national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American.
My family bears no responsibility for my choices. I do. Please give them privacy.
— Jensen
What the Photograph Couldn't Show
Beijing's embassy dismissed the allegations as “groundless smears and slanders.” In Singapore, the Ministry of Home Affairs rejected a Wall Street Journal account that officials there suspected Alice Huang of being a Chinese intelligence source and had investigated her over those ties. The Journal had also asked about information that she was questioned and released in 2025. Singapore police have confirmed a separate, ongoing investigation into Megaspeed.
Megaspeed said it had hired outside counsel to investigate and told the US government it would cooperate. The White House, CIA and National Security Agency declined to comment to the Times, which reported that the Commerce Department had referred the Megaspeed case to the Justice Department this year. On Capitol Hill, three Republican committee chairs have asked Jensen Huang to appear for a closed-door briefing on November 18. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has demanded answers from him and the board.
The Taipei photograph places Alice Huang beside the man whose company made the chips her business needed. Trade records show what her company's network bought. The intelligence accounts raise a different set of questions: what, if anything, did she learn from him, what did he know about her alleged role, and did Beijing gain any influence over Nvidia's push to sell chips to China? Even her current role at Megaspeed remains unclear. Jensen Huang has given his account to employees. Alice Huang has yet to give hers publicly.
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