Cloud computing firm Megaspeed has come under fresh scrutiny as the US looks into Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with a businesswoman alleged to be a Chinese spy.
Nvidia has seen hundreds of billions of dollars wiped from its value in recent days after the US chipmaker said it would investigate Huang’s admitted relationship with the former Megaspeed director Alice Huang.
China says allegations about Chinese spies are “entirely groundless” and “intended to smear and malign China”. But US intelligence officials nevertheless believe Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, was funneling information to Beijing.
For years, Washington has tried to keep China from gaining the know-how to rival the United States in cutting-edge AI, which Nvidia’s chips support.
Now attention turns to Megaspeed over suspicions that it helped Beijing gain access to advanced AI chips whose export to China is restricted.
What is Megaspeed?
Megaspeed was incorporated in 2015 as 7Road International before changing its name to Megaspeed International in March 2023, when it was bought by a British Virgin Islands company called Huang Le Ltd.
Alice Huang ended her eight month tenure as managing director months later, in October 2023, but is reported to still be involved in the company. In November 2023, the firm was sold again to a Singaporean entity called Swiftdata, which says its main job is providing hosting services by non-data centres.
Megaspeed's assets increased sharply to $3 billion in 2024 from $33 million in 2023, its business filings showed.
The company soon became one of Nvidia’s biggest Asian customers and grew rapidly as a link between the US chipmaker and the Chinese tech group Alibaba. Two Singapore citizens are listed as officers of both Megaspeed and Swiftdata.
Singapore has come under mounting pressure from the US to clamp down on companies suspected of transferring advanced AI chips to Chinese firms. But the city-state does not necessarily exclude such transfers.
Singaporean police are now conducting their own investigation into Megaspeed, in step with US authorities. US intelligence officials have already concluded Alice Huang was a Chinese intelligence asset, according to the New York Times.
What did US intelligence find?
US intelligence officials have reportedly been alert to Alice Huang’s position for some time. According to the New York Times, US president Donald Trump was briefed on intelligence findings around a year ago but chose to do nothing with them.
It was late last year that US authorities began investigating Megaspeed over suspicions it was helping to divert Nvidia chips to China.
Singapore police said they would investigate the firm over “suspected breaches of our domestic laws” after a US senator asked the commerce department to look into related concerns.
According to the NYT, officials suspected it was Alice Huang who was feeding information directly to Beijing on how to gain access to the advanced AI chips.
Megaspeed has denied any wrongdoing and told the newspaper that it was “committed to getting to the facts behind these allegations” and would welcome a “formal, evidence-based investigation”.
It said in a statement last year that “there has been no evidence of any violations concerning the illicit transfer of chips or any illegal activities”.
And Nvidia said Megaspeed was just like any other regional customer, and that such customers only “receive ordinary business information - not sensitive Nvidia trade secrets - and zero information relevant to national security”.
Who is Alice Huang?
For all the concerns above, the affair between Alice Huang and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang has rocked the tech and political worlds. It remains unclear how long the affair lasted, and when exactly the relationship might have ended.
Alice Huang was a Chinese finance executive before becoming involved in artificial intelligence, data centers and computer chips. She became Megaspeed’s controlling shareholder in March 2023, according to research by the C4ADS, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on global security.
But by November 2023, she was no longer listed as a director, and all her shares were transferred to a Singaporean businessman, Tan Yong Pong, who also is known as James Tan.
While public records suggest Alice Huang left Megaspeed, short seller Culper Research issued a report in May this year that cited a Megaspeed employee saying Huang was “actually still our boss” and was still involved in the company’s daily operations.
Before Megaspeed, Alice Huang previously held senior positions at the Chinese firm Shanghai Hexi Investment Co. from around 2015 to 2017, according to social media posts and records from Simuwang, a Chinese private equity database.
Before that, she worked at HSBC’s Hong Kong private banking arm and at CITIC Securities, a Chinese investment bank.
