Santa Clara / Washington (USA), November 9. Nvidia’s board of directors has asked a committee of independent directors to look into reports that the company’s founder and chief executive, Jensen Huang, was the target of a foreign intelligence effort, the board said in a statement dated November 8.
The inquiry is run by a committee of independent directors with the help of outside counsel. The board says it has no reason to believe that national security or Nvidia’s secrets were compromised, but the inquiry will examine all available information. Huang, the statement says, fully supports the review and has committed to cooperating with it, and the board has confidence in him and his leadership team. The statement gives no timetable, committee membership or names of the lawyers; as RuntimeWire describes it, it does not mention Alice Huang, the company Megaspeed or China.
The same day Huang wrote a letter to employees in which, Bloomberg reported, he said he was deeply sorry: “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did.” In Bloomberg’s account the letter does not say with whom the relationship was and does not admit that any information reached a foreign intelligence service.
Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, held a senior position at Megaspeed, a Singapore company. According to The New York Times as retold by the Indian newspaper DT Next, Megaspeed buys accelerators from Nvidia for data centres and rents computing capacity to Chinese companies, including Alibaba. She is not related to Jensen Huang, the outlet Trending Topics notes, retelling the Financial Times. Photos from LinkedIn show the two at a bar in Taipei in June 2024, a few weeks before Megaspeed’s first purchases, WION writes, retelling the Financial Times.
On Thursday, October 29, The New York Times reported that American officials believe Alice Huang is a Chinese intelligence asset who became close to the head of Nvidia. According to the newspaper, President Donald Trump was briefed on this about a year ago and took no action, Free Press Journal reports. The scrutiny of Megaspeed intensified after officials inspecting a data centre in Malaysia found Nvidia equipment still in factory packaging, Tom’s Guide says.
The same day Huang told Bloomberg in an interview that the relationship with Megaspeed was normal and ordinary, and that Nvidia had checked how the company had deployed its accelerators to make sure they did not go to China, The American Bazaar recalls. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren demanded answers for Congress from Huang and the board, Forklog reported.
On Friday, October 30, Nvidia rejected the report, ABC News said. The company’s spokesman John Rizzo, as Trending Topics retells it, said Huang meets thousands of customer executives a year, that Nvidia does not share classified information with customers and that such contacts are routine. China’s foreign ministry, according to the South China Morning Post, called the claims “groundless speculation” meant to smear China.
On Saturday, October 31, The Wall Street Journal wrote that intelligence agencies in the United States, Singapore and Taiwan considered it possible that Alice Huang was spying for China, according to an Axios timeline.
The letter from three House committee chairs is dated November 4 and was released on November 5, Axios reported. It was signed by Brian Mast (Foreign Affairs), John Moolenaar (Select Committee on China) and Rick Crawford (Intelligence). They asked Huang to appear at a closed joint briefing on November 18 and to reply by November 11; November 18 falls the day after Nvidia’s quarterly earnings. The lawmakers ask about the company’s safeguards against foreign adversaries and about Huang’s contacts with Alice Huang: Chinese penetration and access to advanced American technology, they wrote, remain the main subject of investigation for all three committees this session.
On Friday, November 6, The New York Times and the Financial Times reported the conclusion of American intelligence: Alice Huang was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security to collect information about Huang. The Financial Times added that a memo written earlier this year by American officials also described a romantic relationship between Huang and Alice Huang. Nvidia declined to comment on the memo; the White House and the CIA also declined, The Standard reported.
All information about the espionage part of the case comes from anonymous sources, no charges have been brought against Huang or Alice Huang, and no one accuses Huang himself of knowingly taking part in intelligence gathering, Free Press Journal notes. It is unclear what information Alice Huang passed on and whether Huang knew. According to WION, when Trump was first briefed, officials believed Huang did not know of her alleged ties. Some senior officials now doubt he could have remained unaware. Surveillance of her continues, and companies linked to Megaspeed continue to buy Nvidia products.
What it means: A dispute over exports of accelerators to China has turned into a question about the security of the company’s own chief. Huang admitted in a letter to employees that he was unfaithful to his wife, the board ordered an inquiry into “all available information”, and the espionage part remains reports from anonymous sources that Nvidia and China dispute.
What we know now: Huang remains head of Nvidia, and the board has given no timetable for the inquiry and promised to provide updates “as appropriate”. The reply to Congress is expected by November 11, quarterly earnings are due on November 17, and the briefing is requested for November 18.
Background: Megaspeed had come to the authorities’ attention earlier. In October 2025 The New York Times wrote about a US Commerce Department probe into whether the company helped Chinese firms evade export restrictions. The case involved purchases of Nvidia accelerators worth about $2 billion, TweakTown recalls. Nvidia says in response that the allegations were investigated and refuted last year. The United States restricted exports of the most powerful accelerators to China to deny it technologies considered important for security. Huang came to Astana on October 23, six days before The New York Times’ first report. He was invited by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development Zhaslan Madiyev, and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev awarded the Nvidia chief the Order of Dostyk and accepted his proposal to make Kazakhstan a hub for physical artificial intelligence. Huang named Firebird AI KZ Ltd, Kazakhtelecom and Higgsfield as Nvidia’s partners in Kazakhstan, as Akorda said; we wrote about it on October 23.
We have also reported on the head of Nvidia’s first visit to Kazakhstan and on his meeting with President Tokayev.
