// ARS TECHNICA — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
Report: Trump did nothing with intel that China planted spy close to Nvidia CEO
Spy accused of exploiting Trump ties to Huang, funneling secrets to China.
Donald Trump apparently is so aligned with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang—who has become the president’s key advisor on AI—that he ignored intelligence indicating that Huang was the target of a “Chinese spy plot,” and did so partly to protect Nvidia’s stock.
The New York Times spoke with people briefed on US intelligence agencies’ surveillance and granted them anonymity to discuss findings drawn from “classified intelligence.” According to sources, about a year ago, Trump was briefed that “Beijing was getting reports from someone with direct access” to Huang. That “someone” was Alice Huang, or Huang Le, a Chinese citizen and former top executive at a Singapore cloud company called Megaspeed.
According to sources, the US had already suspected that Alice Huang—who is not related to Jensen Huang—was helping China evade export controls to gain access to high-end Nvidia chips through Megaspeed. But it alarmed investigators to discover that she may have used her role at Megaspeed to gain direct access to Jensen Huang. It’s now believed she may have leveraged that closeness to feed China intel not only on one of America’s leading AI companies, but also to influence Trump’s thinking on AI. As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted last month ahead of Trump’s AI talks with China President Xi Jinping, “the president is completely aligned with Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia.”
At least partly due to fears that US action against the alleged spying could hobble Nvidia chip sales or disrupt the delicate US-China trade truce, Trump “chose not to do anything with the information,” sources said.
Soon after US scrutiny increased, Alice Huang’s name was removed from Megaspeed corporate documents. At this stage, it’s unclear “how closely she is still connected to Megaspeed,” NYT reported.
Liu Chang, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, told NYT that the US accusations against Alice Huang are baseless. He accused the US of pursuing a campaign of “groundless smears and slanders” against China.
It’s not clear which agencies were investigating Alice Huang or what triggered their suspicions, NYT reported. Sources also could not explain what information she may have shared with Beijing.
Nvidia has denied that she would have had access to any trade secrets, but it seems notable that Jensen Huang did not receive a defensive briefing that Americans sometimes get when they’re targets of foreign spying. Some senior officials think it’s unlikely that Jensen Huang would have “remained unaware” of Alice Huang’s alleged intelligence-gathering for the entire duration of their professional relationship, although Trump was told Jensen Huang had no knowledge at the time of his briefing. It seems possible that Jensen Huang got no briefing because US agencies worried that he might tip her off that “she was being watched,” the NYT reported.
Trump’s deep ties with tech leaders have been criticized throughout his administration, but Jensen Huang’s influence increasingly stands out. To critics, the political friendship appears to be largely based on growing his business in China. Since cozying up to Trump, the Nvidia CEO has gotten export controls relaxed and even struck a controversial deal giving the US a 25 percent cut of some chip sales so he could try to sell more chips in China. Sources told NYT that “some investigations and proposed trade sanctions involving China or Nvidia” have “ground to a halt within the Commerce Department” due to Jensen Huang’s influence.