US intelligence memo says China recruited Megaspeed executive to spy on Nvidia CEO
Alice Huang allegedly tasked with persuading Jensen Huang to lobby against chip export curbs, Congress investigates the chief executive's private life while an authorized Chinese chip buyer lists a hollow gray shell as its office
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A US intelligence memo claims that China's Ministry of State Security recruited an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed to spy on Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, tasking her with establishing a relationship with him and persuading him to lobby Washington to ease restrictions on semiconductor exports. The New York Times reported the memo on November 6 and the Financial Times confirmed it the same day; according to the Times, President Donald Trump had been briefed on the matter. An Nvidia spokesperson described Huang's interactions with the executive, Alice Huang, as "not unusual."
The memo, which circulated earlier this year, is the sharpest turn in ten days of escalating reporting. On October 29 the Times described a "close relationship" between the pair and US authorities' concerns about Alice Huang's possible intelligence connections; two days later the Wall Street Journal reported that agencies in the US, Singapore and Taiwan had reason to believe she might be a Chinese spy. The memo claims she was recruited by senior intelligence officials specifically to target Huang, and that the two were romantically involved. Nvidia has repeatedly rejected the suggestion of anything beyond an ordinary business association and says no sensitive information was shared. Beijing denies any involvement.
Congress has moved on two tracks. Republican leaders of several House committees have asked Huang to brief them on the relationship and on Nvidia's safeguards for sensitive information, giving him until November 11 and citing "the extent to which U.S. national security has been placed at risk." Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware wrote that "there is nothing this administration does that isn't corrupt" and promised that Congress would "investigate and get answers."
The case has several beneficiaries. For the intelligence and export-control apparatus, a Chinese operation against the head of the company whose chips Washington licenses buyer by buyer is the strongest budget argument in years. For Nvidia's competitors, every new security case is another obstacle placed in front of the firm that, in its spokesperson's words, sells "the first, best and most of our technology in America." For the industry at large, the memo settles an operating condition: in a semiconductor chain where every supplier, distributor and partner is a security risk by definition, vetting never concludes.
Huang has until November 11 to arrange the briefing. The same body of reporting has already tested the system the committee chairmen say they are defending: New Matrix, a Chinese company authorized by the US Commerce Department to buy advanced Nvidia chips, listed an office address where Times reporters found "a hollow gray shell."