Report: $7.5 Billion in Nvidia Chips Routed to China via CEO Affair

At least $7.5 billion worth of Nvidia AI chips reached Chinese firms through a channel built on the personal relationship between Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang and Alice Huang, a woman the U.S. government reportedly identified as a Chinese spy. That is the central claim of a report published by The Information on the 10th, which cited two acquaintances of Alice Huang.

The figure is large enough to matter. It represents 240,000 high-performance units — H100, H200 and A100 processors — either smuggled into China or supplied to Chinese users through data center compute rentals, according to the report. Alibaba and Tencent, plus smaller Chinese AI firms, received the resulting computing capacity and used it for training AI models.

Who is Alice Huang and what did she build?

The reporting names a corporate network spanning China, Singapore and Malaysia, staffed in part by family members. Kang Wei, reported to be her husband, and her younger sister Huang Yu participated in the operation.

• Shanghai Century Litong, founded in June 2023, lists Huang Yu among its founding shareholders. Nvidia granted it "preferred cloud partner" status in October 2023 — four months after incorporation — giving it priority access to chips.
• Megaspeed, the Singapore entity, was formed after Alice Huang acquired the Singapore subsidiary of Chinese game developer 7Road in 2023 through a shell company registered in the British Virgin Islands, then renamed it, The New York Times reported. She operated under an executive title and appeared on the company website.
• Speedmatrix, Megaspeed's Malaysian subsidiary, secured Alibaba as a key client by pledging servers and intellectual property as collateral to Apex, an Alibaba subsidiary.

When U.S. export controls on China halted or delayed Nvidia chip orders, Alice Huang intervened and secured supplies through her connections at Nvidia and elsewhere, according to the report. The report does not state whether Jensen Huang knew the destination or purpose of the shipments, and no accusation of his direct involvement appears in the published accounts.

What did investigators find?

Her activities left a trail. Large-scale AI chip orders drew the attention of the U.S. Commerce Department, which dispatched an official who confirmed unopened Nvidia equipment stacked at a Megaspeed data center. Taiwanese authorities began monitoring her visits that year at the request of the U.S. government.

Singapore moved as well. Authorities investigated Megaspeed and summoned Alice Huang on suspicion of filing false import declarations. The probe closed for lack of evidence. She then left for Shanghai.

Did the network shut down?

No. Megaspeed has continued to pursue the related business, sources said. At its Malaysian office, another executive connected to Alice Huang directed construction of a data center, while a separate affiliated company dispatched engineers.

The pattern resembles a classic sanctions-evasion structure: a legitimate chip distribution status in Shanghai, a Singapore trading hub, and a Malaysian build-out, all linked through family members and shell ownership. Whether U.S. authorities reopen the file remains unknown. Nvidia has not, according to the report, commented on the allegations, and the $7.5 billion figure rests on the accounts of two acquaintances rather than audited shipping records.