You probably saw the headlines this weekend. Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang admitted to an affair, his board started an independent investigation, and US intelligence reportedly believes the woman at the centre of it worked for China’s spy agency. Now there’s a new piece to the story, and it’s about money and chips.
The Financial Times reported on Monday, 9 November 2026, that Alice Huang, the alleged Chinese spy linked to Huang, pitched investors on a data centre project in Southeast Asia and told them getting Nvidia chips would not be a problem.
Here’s what we know so far, and what is still only an allegation.
What the FT says happened in the investor pitch
According to the FT, as reported by Tech Digest and The Energy Mag:
- In early 2025, Alice Huang and her business partner Kang Wei pitched China-based investors on a large data centre in Southeast Asia worth several hundred million dollars.
- Two investors who heard the pitch told the FT the pair said they would have no problem securing the GPUs the project needed.
- Alibaba was presented as the main customer. (Alibaba declined to comment to Bloomberg on its links to Megaspeed.)
- She did not tell investors about any personal relationship with Jensen Huang.
- The FT did not say whether the project ever got funded.
GPUs are the graphics processors Nvidia sells for AI work, and they’re exactly what the US has been trying to keep out of Chinese hands since export controls tightened under the Biden administration. So when someone allegedly tied to Chinese intelligence tells Chinese investors she can get them, you can see why people are paying attention.
Who is Alice Huang?
Alice Huang also goes by Huang Le. She is not related to Jensen Huang, The Telegraph notes.
Bloomberg describes her as a former TV journalist who moved into private equity. She founded Megaspeed International in 2023, spinning it off from 7Road Holdings, a Chinese video game company. A few months later the business was sold to a Singapore shell company, and days after that Megaspeed became an official Nvidia Cloud Partner.
Her current role at Megaspeed is unclear, and so is where she is right now. Bloomberg reported that Singapore police questioned her last year and barred her from leaving the country. Singapore said on 31 October that its probe into Megaspeed is ongoing, but denied it was investigating Alice Huang over alleged links to Chinese intelligence.
The spy allegations, in order
This story has come out in pieces, so here’s the short timeline:
- 29 October: The New York Times reported US officials believed Alice Huang was passing information to Beijing. US officials were briefed that she was working for China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) to learn about US AI chips and possibly push Nvidia to sell its most advanced chips in China.
- 6 November: The FT reported on a US government memo that described a romantic relationship between her and Jensen Huang, and said US intelligence believed the MSS had recruited her.
- 8 November (Sunday): Jensen Huang admitted to an affair. “There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry,” he said, according to CBS News. He apologised to his wife, Lori, and their children, and said, “I support the investigation and will cooperate fully.” The same day, Nvidia’s board announced its investigation.
- 9 November (Monday): The FT reported the investor pitch.
None of the spy claims have been proven in public. China’s Foreign Ministry rejected them on Monday, and Tom’s Hardware reported Beijing calling the accusations “groundless smears and slanders.”
Why Megaspeed is under the microscope
Megaspeed is a Singapore company that runs data centres and rents out computing power. It has bought a lot of Nvidia hardware. Bloomberg puts its imports of Nvidia products above $4.6 billion, while the New York Times, as cited by CBS, put its chip purchases at more than $4.8 billion over two years.
Renting computing power to a Chinese company from a data centre outside China isn’t automatically illegal. The Telegraph explains it becomes an export violation if the buyer acts on behalf of a Chinese company or is ultimately owned by Chinese investors.
Some of the details reported so far:
- The FT reported that Megaspeed’s balance sheet grew from $33 million to $3 billion during 2024.
- Alibaba’s Singapore subsidiary, Apex Enterprise Solutions, lent money to Megaspeed’s Malaysian arm, Speedmatrix, in June 2024, per the FT.
- Washington asked Nvidia to audit Megaspeed last year. Nvidia first said the hardware was fully accounted for. Bloomberg then reported Megaspeed had imported 50,000 more chips than Nvidia found in its data centres. Nvidia said in December 2025 it would take another look, and has not said whether it did.
- Short seller Culper Research said in May 2026 that Megaspeed appeared to be “secretly financed by Alibaba via a series of apparent shell companies.”
Megaspeed denies all of it. It told The Telegraph it carried out “thorough investigations” and found “no evidence of any violations,” and told Bloomberg it was “surprised by allegations that a former Megaspeed executive acted as a foreign intelligence asset.” Nvidia has said its own review “found no evidence of diversion” and that Megaspeed is “fully owned and operated outside China, with no Chinese shareholders.”
What Nvidia and Jensen Huang have said
Nvidia’s board statement on Sunday said: “The NVIDIA Board is initiating an independent investigation in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort.” A committee of independent directors, with outside counsel, will run it.
The board also said it had “no reason to believe” company secrets or national security were compromised. A spokesperson said Huang fully supports the review and plans to keep leading the company.
Nvidia has also pushed back on the idea that Huang shared anything sensitive. Its line is that he meets thousands of customer executives a year and swaps ordinary business information with them, not trade secrets.
Congress wants answers on 18 November
Three Republican House committee chairs have asked Jensen Huang to a closed-door briefing on 18 November about Nvidia’s security protocols, and asked him to reply by 11 November, according to Bloomberg and The Energy Mag.
That meeting is the next date to watch. If you want to know whether this turns into a real policy fight over Nvidia’s China sales, that’s where it will show up first.
What happened to Nvidia stock
Nvidia shares fell on Monday after the investigation news. Reports differ on the size: The Energy Mag reported a drop of about 5% in premarket trading, and Tech Digest reported a 7% drop in early trading. Finimize noted the stock was already more than 25% below its early October peak, with worries about AI spending weighing on it too.
What we still don’t know
A lot, honestly. Nobody has said which Nvidia chips were mentioned in the pitch, how many, or where in Southeast Asia the data centre would be. We don’t know if the project raised any money. Alice Huang hasn’t commented in any of the reports we found, and neither has Kang Wei. And the core claim, that she was working for Chinese intelligence, comes from anonymous officials and government memos described to reporters, not from charges filed in court.
So treat this as a story that’s still developing. We’ll update this page when the board’s investigation reports back or after the 18 November briefing.
