Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Alice Huang and a trail of business links to Huawei

Detailed summary

An investigation by CNBC and Tesari reveals alleged Chinese spy Alice Huang had business links to Huawei connected data centres while associated with Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang.

The alleged Chinese spy, Alice Huang, may have had business interests in companies connected to Huawei, Nvidia's major competitor in China, during the period she was also associated with the chipmaker and reportedly involved in a romantic relationship with its former CEO, Jensen Huang, according to an investigation by CNBC.

The links between Alice Huang and Huawei were uncovered by analysts at private intelligence firm Tesari, which shared its findings exclusively with CNBC.

The firm, which uses artificial intelligence to gather evidence for national security investigations, traced a network of companies and transactions that allegedly connected businesses associated with Alice Huang to a data centre providing computing capacity to Huawei.

The findings raise questions about the nature of Alice Huang's business interests and whether Jensen Huang was aware of her reported connections to entities linked to his company's competitor.

Jensen Huang has acknowledged having an affair, although the timeline of his relationship with Alice Huang remains unclear.

According to Tesari, the connections between Alice Huang and Huawei were established through a complex web of corporate holdings and financial arrangements. The firm said the structure appeared designed to make the relationships difficult to trace, based on its investigative experience.

Chinese corporate records and media reports reviewed by CNBC and compiled by Tesari indicate that Alice Huang, also known by her Chinese name Huang Le, had interests in several businesses with links to China's technology and data centre sectors.

In 2019, Alice Huang sold a cloud computing business called Osmanthus to Chinese gaming company 7Road. A Singapore-based subsidiary of 7Road was subsequently spun off as Megaspeed in 2023. Megaspeed later emerged as a significant Nvidia customer and reportedly helped facilitate at least $7.5 billion in Nvidia chip shipments to Chinese companies, according to a report by The Information.

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