Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s professional ties to a Chinese businesswoman have reportedly facilitated the movement of $7.5 billion in high-end artificial intelligence chips into China, according to a report published Tuesday by The Information.
The report identifies the businesswoman as Alice Huang—who is not related to the Nvidia CEO—and alleges that she, along with her husband and sister, orchestrated a network of companies across China and Singapore to acquire Nvidia chips. These chips were subject to United States export restrictions.
At the center of this network was Shanghai Century Litong, a firm established in China in June 2023. By October, the company had secured preferred cloud partner status with Nvidia. This designation granted the firm priority access to the company’s chips.
The Information reported that Century Litong was initially tied to Alice Huang’s sister, Huang Yu, through a founder who was actually controlled by Huang Yu before she left the company in 2024. Through these channels, approximately 240,000 Nvidia chips—including the H100, H200, and some A100 models—reportedly entered China. Some of these chips ended up being used by Alibaba, Tencent, and smaller Chinese laboratories dedicated to artificial intelligence.
The operation extended beyond mainland China, utilizing a web of entities. Alice Huang held an executive role at Megaspeed, a Singapore-registered company linked to Century Litong. This firm has been investigated by United States authorities in relation to the shipment of Nvidia chips from Southeast Asia to China.
According to the report, Megaspeed obtained the chips either by renting computing capacity from data centers in Southeast Asia to Chinese clients, or by physically shipping the hardware to China. A Malaysian subsidiary, Speedmatrix, was created by Megaspeed in 2024, with hardware acquired by the subsidiary eventually reaching Century Litong.
The report suggests that Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, used her relationship with Jensen Huang to gain credibility, maintaining great ambiguity about her role and avoiding leaving a documentary trail.
