The Nvidia scandal is far bigger than its founder’s bed. Chip betrayals

It was June 2024 when Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, was photographed drinking whisky with a Chinese businesswoman, Alice Huang, and other executives from the artificial intelligence sector in a bar and later over dinner at a restaurant in Taipei. Alice, whose Chinese name on LinkedIn is Huang Xiaole – whilst the name reported by the media is Huang Le – was an executive at the Singapore-based data centre company Megaspeed, which at that very time was embarking on a multi-billion purchase of advanced microchips for artificial intelligence.  

The relationship between the two, as revealed ten days ago by the New York Times, was monitored a year ago by US intelligence and reported to senior figures in the Administration, right up to President Donald Trump: According to the files, Huang was suspected of having circumvented restrictions on access to Nvidia’s advanced AI chips and of being a spy for the Chinese Ministry of State Security, the Guoan bu: Trump decided to take no action, let alone formally alert the CEO of the American company, so as not to interfere with Nvidia’s sales and commercial relations with Beijing. On Sunday, the entrepreneur sent a letter to his employees in which he admitted to having been “unfaithful”, apologised for hurting his wife and children, and wrote: “I am committed to protecting Nvidia and upholding US national security”. A few hours later, Nvidia announced the launch of an independent investigation into its chief executive, assuring that it had “no reason to believe that national security or Nvidia’s secrets have been compromised”, but that “the board’s investigation will examine all available information”. When the markets opened, the company’s shares plummeted by 8 per cent before settling at around a 4 per cent fall at the close, whilst shares in rival AMD rose by over 9 per cent. On Sunday evening, Trump immediately defended the American businessman: “He had dealings with someone, but, you know, everyone does,” he said of the Chinese national who, according to intelligence reports, had been recruited by Beijing’s main espionage agency to gather information on Jensen Huang and influence the company into allowing the introduction into China of its most advanced chips – which remain banned from export to this day. “He’s done nothing wrong; he’s a good person,” Trump continued, adding that he “would definitely take him along” on his next trip to China. The American historian Chris Miller, author of the bestseller Chip War, told Il Foglio that the scandal surrounding Jensen Huang “will push Congress to adopt a much tougher line on technology controls vis-à-vis China. “Trump has pursued a lax policy on technology controls,” he says, and will now face in-depth investigations into the White House’s decision-making process regarding the espionage allegations. “I predict this will create new tensions in US-China relations just as Trump and Xi are preparing to meet.”

Since June 2024 – the date of the photograph showing Jensen Huang with the mysterious Chinese woman – Megaspeed, Alice Huang’s company, is reported to have purchased at least 4.8 billion dollars’ worth of equipment featuring Nvidia technology. During the same period, Jensen Huang began pressing the US government with increasing insistence to authorise chip manufacturers to sell artificial intelligence technologies to China, in order to compete with Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, and slow down the development of artificial intelligence. In 2025, he persuaded the US president to lift the ban on the sale of AI chips to Beijing and to allow Nvidia to sell a less powerful chip there, eventually leading to consideration of easing restrictions on the more powerful chip, the Blackwell.

Yesterday, at a press conference, the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guo Jiakun, spoke of allegations based on unfounded speculation and aimed at defaming China; In Chinese state media and on Chinese social media, the allegations of espionage against Alice Huang have been thoroughly censored, leaving only reports relating to Jensen Huang’s extramarital affair and his letter of apology to his employees and family. Information about the woman on the Chinese internet is also extremely scarce, apart from the fact that she worked at several major Chinese banks. The espionage agency from which she is alleged to have been recruited, according to US intelligence – the Guojia anquan bu, or Guoan bu – is the agency in which Chinese leader Xi Jinping has invested most heavily in recent years to gather intelligence and conduct counter-espionage operations, placing technology at the heart of the People’s Republic of China’s priorities, including artificial intelligence. A few years ago, the agency changed its strategy: moving away from utmost secrecy, it opened a WeChat account and began posting informative videos to raise awareness amongst Chinese citizens about espionage by the United States, offering rewards to those who report such activities, particularly in the IT sector. In a 2025 post, it warned the Chinese public specifically about what are known in espionage circles as ‘honeypots’ – intimate relationships used to build trust and then turned into weapons of blackmail: foreign agents can disguise themselves as ‘rich, beautiful or charming individuals’.