Ann Nvidia A spokesperson on Thursday denied a New York Times report detailing that U.S. intelligence agencies are monitoring people close to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, believing they may be Chinese intelligence agents.
Alice Huang, who is associated with Singapore-based cloud firm MegaSpeed, developed a close relationship with Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, according to a Times report citing people briefed on the intelligence surveillance.
Intelligence agencies were concerned that she was a spy, helping the Chinese government obtain information from Nvidia and Jensen Huang, and were concerned that Nvidia’s CEO would have access to President Trump.
An Nvidia spokesperson denied the story in a statement to CNBC, saying that Singapore-based Megaspeed is one of the company’s regional cloud customers and that Jensen Huang’s interactions with Nvidia officials are not unusual and that he speaks with thousands of customers each year.
The spokesperson added that customers will not have access to Nvidia’s trade secrets or related national security information.
The report also alleges that Megaspeed is suspected of previously helping companies evade U.S. export restrictions on Nvidia’s AI chips, which are prohibited from being shipped to China.
Nvidia said Megaspeed was already being investigated for evading export controls.
“This regional cloud diversion allegation was thoroughly investigated last year and debunked,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Nvidia has hinted that the US government has not briefed Nvidia about Alice Fan.
“We are confident that if the U.S. government determines that someone is a threat to U.S. industry, they will let us know,” the spokesperson said.
Nvidia has been forced to walk a tightrope in Washington as its AI chips have become a powerful tool for all AI developers and a bargaining chip in economic competition with China.
Politicians and analysts say Nvidia’s AI chips could be used to create military AI models in China, as well as commercial AI models that could compete with and eventually surpass U.S. technology.
As AI becomes increasingly important to the government, NVIDIA’s Huang has become friends with President Trump and has given pro-American speeches about building America’s AI infrastructure.
Huang has attended state dinners, AI summits and overseas trips with President Trump, all while pushing for the green light to ship certain Nvidia chips to China.
Earlier this year, the U.S. government allowed Nvidia’s H200 chips to be shipped to China, but Chinese regulators blocked the import. The H200 is Nvidia’s Hopper generation of chips, not the faster Blackwell generation of chips currently used by American AI developers.
An Nvidia spokesperson said the Chinese government is not seeking Nvidia products from regional clouds like Megaspeed.
“Instead, the Chinese government blocked U.S. AI chips to protect its own industry, resulting in the largest loss in U.S. technology history,” an NVIDIA spokesperson said. Last year, Nvidia wrote off about $4.5 billion on AI chips tuned in China.
