An investigation by The Information has concluded that Megaspeed executive Alice Huang was instrumental in securing more than $7.5 billion of Nvidia AI GPU imports, and that she helped move roughly 240,000 banned chips into China, mostly H100 and H200 systems. The findings, reported on November 10 by Tom’s Hardware, center on a network of firms tied to the Shanghai data center operator Shanghai Century Litong and to the Singaporean company Megaspeed, which has previously been accused of smuggling $2 billion worth of Nvidia chips.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has admitted to having an affair with Ms. Huang, who is also suspected of being a spy working for the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS). The Information describes the corporate structure around her as a “labyrinth” of companies.
How Alice Huang was linked to the chip flows
Sources in the report tie Megaspeed and Shanghai Century Litong to Alice Huang through their personal knowledge of her role and through corporate registration records. There have also been reports that some of the Nvidia AI chips Megaspeed bought ended up in Shanghai Century Litong’s data centers in China.
Beyond the corporate paperwork, the report documents how her personal relationship with the Nvidia chief executive gave her the ability to procure chips that were otherwise hard to obtain. People familiar with her said she regularly uploaded photos with Jensen to her WeChat account and shared other images with customers to establish her credibility. She claimed that Jensen Huang would often celebrate her birthday with dinner and gifts, and an Nvidia China sales employee said she was a familiar face at the company’s annual event for local Chinese partners.
When AI shipments hit delays or ran into trouble, Ms. Huang allegedly stepped in to get them moving through the supply chain again. One person who knows her said she would often cite her close relationship with Nvidia and its suppliers as the reason she could always get Nvidia AI chips.
Where the $7.5 billion figure comes from
The report estimates that $4.6 billion worth of AI chips were imported through Megaspeed between 2023 and 2025, with another $2 billion routed through a subsidiary called Speedmatrix. Shanghai Century Litong also bought GPUs from other sources, with Ms. Huang’s assistance when orders ran into problems. The total value of the GPUs acquired across the network is estimated at around $7.5 billion, covering some 240,000 banned chips.
Preferred partner status and the A800 and H800 ban
Shanghai Century Litong was founded in June 2023 by a shareholder that was ultimately under the control of Huang Yu, the sister of Alice Huang, whose Chinese name is Huang Le. The company provided compute capacity to Chinese technology giants including Alibaba and Tencent, as well as smaller AI labs.
A few months after its founding, in October 2023, it received Nvidia Preferred Cloud Partner status. Nvidia requires anyone holding that designation to have demonstrated sufficient capability in handling and running Nvidia hardware and to generate revenue at a certain level, although the threshold varies by region and partner type. In exchange, partners get better access to Nvidia’s limited number of chips.
That access mattered because the China-specific A800 and H800 chips were banned for sale to China around the same period. The restriction immediately halted Nvidia’s own sales of those GPUs, but it did not affect stock already in the hands of distributors. As an Nvidia Preferred Cloud Partner, Shanghai Century Litong had priority access to that limited remaining supply. Nvidia’s position in the Chinese market has since shifted dramatically, with Jensen Huang saying the company now has zero percent market share in China.
Megaspeed, Speedmatrix and the boxes in Johor
Megaspeed was reportedly owned by a company called Huang Le Limited and led by Ms. Huang when it pivoted in 2023. It was subsequently sold to the Singaporean entity Swiftdata soon after. Megaspeed then set up the subsidiary Speedmatrix, which has two offices in Johor, Malaysia, a couple of months later.
The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the U.S. agency responsible for monitoring export control compliance, noted that Nvidia hardware found in Speedmatrix data centers was still in its boxes when inspectors visited the sites. That observation triggered a deeper investigation into the company. It has been alleged that Nvidia intervened in the BIS probe, and the company retains its Nvidia partner status to this day. Scrutiny of the company’s China-facing arrangements has extended elsewhere, including questions over H200 approvals linked to an empty office.
An earlier entry into Jensen Huang’s circle
The report suggests Ms. Huang may have appeared in Jensen Huang’s circle earlier than previously believed. One source said that Kang Wei, her husband, met Jensen Huang during the 2010s, when Nvidia was primarily a PC gaming GPU manufacturer and when Kang Wei was a private equity investor focused on videogame companies.
Ms. Huang reportedly worked for two media companies in China, although some sources said there were no records of her doing so. She later moved into banking and finance, working at HSBC and then CITIC Securities, before entering the data center industry in 2023 with Megaspeed’s pivot and the founding of Shanghai Century Litong.
A deliberately thin paper trail
Despite her public closeness with the Nvidia chief, she has been elusive about her own details. Two people said she has always been vague about what she does at her companies, and that she is careful when it comes to signing documents and leaving a paper trail that could easily be followed.
The Chinese embassy denies any links to Ms. Huang. The FBI is looking into the situation.
