Nvidia disputes report on surveillance of person linked to Huang

Nvidia pushed back Thursday against a report that U.S. intelligence agencies monitored a person close to CEO Jensen Huang over concerns she could be a Chinese intelligence asset. The report, published by The New York Times and citing people briefed on surveillance, identified Alice Huang as someone linked to Singapore-based cloud provider Megaspeed who developed a close relationship with Jensen Huang. Intelligence agencies worried she could help the Chinese government obtain information from Nvidia, and were also concerned because Jensen Huang has access to President Donald Trump.

An Nvidia spokesperson said Megaspeed is one of the company's regional cloud customers, and that Jensen Huang's contact with its officials is unremarkable because he speaks with thousands of customers each year. The spokesperson added that customers do not receive access to Nvidia trade secrets or national security information. The report also alleged Megaspeed was previously suspected of helping companies evade U.S. export controls on Nvidia's AI chips, which cannot be shipped to China.

The spokesperson said the export control question was settled. "The diversion allegations against this regional cloud were thoroughly investigated and debunked last year," the spokesperson said in a statement. Nvidia also said it had not been briefed by the U.S. government about Alice Huang: "We're confident that if the U.S. government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know," the spokesperson said.

The exchange reflects the position Nvidia has held in Washington as its AI chips became central to competition with China. Politicians and analysts have said Nvidia's chips could be used to build Chinese military AI models or commercial models that could compete with American technology. Jensen Huang has appeared with Trump at state dinners, AI summits and international trips while pushing for approval to ship certain Nvidia chips to China.

Earlier this year the U.S. government cleared Nvidia's H200 chip for sale in China, but Chinese regulators blocked the imports. The H200 belongs to the Hopper generation, not the Blackwell generation that American AI developers currently use. Nvidia's spokesperson said China is not buying chips from regional clouds like Megaspeed. "Instead, the PRC government blocked U.S. AI chips, protecting its own industry and resulting in the largest write-offs in U.S. tech history," the spokesperson said. Nvidia wrote off about $4.5 billion in China-tuned AI chips last year.