NYT: US spy agencies concluded an ex-Megaspeed executive close to Nvidia's Jensen Huang was a Chinese asset; Beijing calls it a smear.
The New York Times reported on 29 October, citing people briefed on classified intelligence, that US spy agencies concluded Huang Le (Alice Huang), a Chinese citizen and former top executive of Singapore data-centre company Megaspeed, was a Chinese intelligence asset passing information to Beijing, and that electronic surveillance of her revealed a close relationship with Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang. President Trump was briefed about a year ago but took no action, and Jensen Huang did not receive the defensive briefing US agencies sometimes give Americans targeted by foreign spies, the paper said. It said US officials had already suspected Megaspeed of helping Chinese firms evade export controls on advanced AI chips, and that surveillance of Huang Le continues. An Nvidia spokesperson told CNBC and others that Jensen Huang's interactions with her were ordinary customer meetings, that regional cloud customers receive only ordinary business information and nothing relevant to national security, and that diversion allegations against Megaspeed were investigated and debunked last year. A Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington told the Times the accusations were baseless. Foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, asked by AFP at a regular briefing on 30 October, said the report was groundless speculation and a smear against China.
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