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The woman at the center of Nvidia’s spy scandal pitched an AI chip deal to China-based investors, touting her ability to secure the U.S. company’s coveted GPUs and her business relationship with Chinese tech giant Alibaba.
In early 2025, Alice Huang and her business partner Kang Wei sought investment for a data center project in Southeast Asia worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to two investors featured in the deal.
The two said they had “no problem securing GPUs” as a key pillar of the deal and cited Alibaba as a customer for the project, according to an investor in attendance.
Under current U.S. export controls, it is legal for Chinese companies to lease data center capacity outside the country. But Chinese ownership of these data center assets, primarily advanced Nvidia GPUs, is not permitted.
Alice Huang did not reveal any close relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during the investment pitch or in her regular business dealings.
The female leader came under scrutiny when it emerged this month that the United States believed Jensen Huang was romantically involved with a Chinese woman who had been recruited to spy for China’s Ministry of State Security, the intelligence agency.
U.S. officials wrote a memo this year, based on U.S. intelligence information, that the Nvidia boss had been romantically involved with Alice Huang, who was an executive at Megaspeed, a client of the Singapore-based chipmaker, according to people familiar with the document.
Alice Huang, whose Chinese name is Huang Le, is also a partner at Hexi Private Equity Partners, a fund established in 2010. It stopped updating its annual results in 2022 and many of its fund products were liquidated, according to Chinese company filings.
She was briefly listed in 2023 as an executive at Megaspeed, which is under investigation in multiple jurisdictions over allegations of chip smuggling. The company has strongly denied allegations of any illicit activity involving chips.
The Nvidia chief admitted on Sunday to having an affair two days after the FT reported his alleged romance. The New York Times was the first to report that the United States believed Jensen Huang had been the target of a espionage campaign by Chinese authorities.
Nvidia shares fell 7% in early trading Monday after the chipmaker’s board said it would open an investigation into the reports.
The spying allegation could not be independently verified by the FT. China’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that the spying allegations were baseless, calling them slander and defamation.
Kang Wei, Alice Huang’s business partner, also serves on the board of directors of Guilin Bank, according to company records, a state-controlled bank whose majority investor is the provincial transportation authority. He could not be reached by telephone for comment and did not respond to a request for comment on WeChat.
Alice Huang could not be reached by telephone for comment. His WeChat and email accounts appear to have been deleted.
Jensen Huang and Alice Huang were seen together at dinner in Shanghai, where Nvidia has its largest office in China in terms of staff, according to a photo seen by the FT. The duo has also been photographed together in Hong Kong and California. None of the photos suggest inappropriate relationships and several are taken in groups.
Megaspeed also leveraged its relationship with Alibaba to open its doors to investors.
Company documents show that Alibaba, through a Singaporean subsidiary called Apex Enterprise Solutions, lent money to Megaspeed, through its Malaysian subsidiary Speedmatrix, in June 2024.
As part of the agreement, Speedmatrix pledged its entire business as security for the loan. Throughout 2024, Megaspeed’s balance sheet grew from $33 million to $3 billion, much of which was based on transactions by its subsidiaries.
Alibaba was Megaspeed’s primary customer for its cloud service in Southeast Asia from the start and remained its largest customer, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. One added that Nvidia first met with Megaspeed to discuss a possible purchase because the company showed its lease deal with Alibaba.
Alibaba did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
With additional reporting from Owen Walker in Singapore, Edward White in Shanghai and Arjun Neil Alim in Hong Kong
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