Nvidia chips worth $7.5 billion were delivered to Chinese firms through the relationship between Nvidia boss Jensen Huang and suspected Beijing agent Alice Huang, The Information reported on Tuesday.
Nvidia CEO Huang has been under fire after acknowledging being unfaithful to his wife amid reports of being romantically involved in a relationship with Alice, who has been identified as working for the Chinese government.
How chips were routed to China?
According to The Information, Alice Huang worked with her husband and sister to create a network of companies in China and Singapore to facilitate the shipments.
One of those firms, Shanghai Century Litong, received preferred cloud partner status from Nvidia in 2023. This status gave the group priority access to limited supplies of advanced chips.
This company had also links to Singapore-based company Megaspeed, where Alice Huang served as an executive.
The network allegedly moved roughly 240,000 processors, including restricted models such as the H100, H200 and A100, into China.
Some of the chips ended up supporting computing work for large Chinese technology companies, including Alibaba and Tencent.
Megaspeed was a central part of the operation.
Chips were often shipped first to data centers in Malaysia or Indonesia. From there, computing power was leased online to users inside China.
This method allowed the hardware to stay outside China’s borders while still serving Chinese customers, helping to work around direct export limits.
The United States has restricted Nvidia’s most powerful AI chips from going to China in 2022. The rules targeted high-performance processors like the A100 and H100 to slow China’s advances in artificial intelligence and related military uses.
Under the Trump administration, limited sales of the more advanced H200 were allowed to approved Chinese buyers under licenses.
Recently, it was reported that large numbers of chips enroute to China were left waiting in warehouses in places like Hong Kong.
Trump defends Huang
President Trump has said the FBI is looking into the matter and that he believes Huang will “be in good shape.”
The president has said that Huang told him “he had absolutely no idea that person was a spy.” Trump added, “I really believe him.”
Trump also indicated he would be willing to include Huang on an upcoming trip to China, but that remains uncertain.
Beijing has rejected the spy allegations as groundless.
Meanwhile, Nvidia’s board of directors has opened an independent investigation into the matter but Huang continues to be the CEO.
The board has clarified that it has no reason to believe that company secrets or national security were compromised.
Nvidia shares had slipped more than 4% on Monday and were on track to open lower on Tuesday as well with investors concerned about the developments.
AI disclosure: AI tools assisted with research and drafting of this piece. An Invezz editor reviewed the facts, sources and wording before publication. Any opinions or analysis are Invezz’s, not those of an automated system.
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