Sources: Jensen Huang and Alice Huang's relationship dates back to at least 2023, facilitating $7.5B+ in Nvidia chip shipments via Chinese companies since then (The Information)

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's extramarital affair with a Chinese woman accused of spying for Beijing allegedly helped ship up to US$7.5 billion worth of Nvidia's chips to Chinese companies, according to a recent report. The Information cited two sources familiar with the situation, detailing how Alice Huang, the alleged spy, and her family built a network of companies across China and Singapore to acquire Nvidia's hardware.

The core of this network was Shanghai Century Litong, a firm founded in June 2023 which secured priority access to Nvidia's chips by October. Alice Huang leveraged her connection to Jensen Huang to build credibility, while shying away from disclosing her role and avoiding a paper trail. Century Litong obtained Nvidia chips through renting computing capacity in Southeast Asian data centres and physically shipping hardware to China.

Some of the chips ended up in the hands of Chinese tech giants Alibaba, Tencent, and smaller AI labs. Alice Huang also held an executive position at Singapore-registered Megaspeed, which was investigated by US authorities for similar chip shipments. The report stated that Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, used her relationship with Jensen Huang to gain credibility while being vague about her actual role.

Nvidia launched an internal investigation following the report, and the FBI is probing whether Jensen Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. Huang has admitted to straying from his marriage but offered no further details.