US officials believe woman close to Nvidia's Jensen Huang worked for Chinese intelligence, NYT reports

U.S. intelligence officials told the Trump administration that a woman who had become close to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was working for a Chinese spy agency that recruited her to collect information on him, The New York Times reported Friday, according to Bloomberg.

The woman, Alice Huang, is an executive at Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based company that buys Nvidia chips. The Times cited unnamed people who had been told of U.S. surveillance of her, and said administration officials learned of the accusations in an intelligence memo. She and the Nvidia chief are not related, and neither has been charged, The Next Web reported. The Times also reported that officials did not believe Jensen Huang knew she might be gathering information for China.

The report adds to pressure from Capitol Hill. In a letter dated Wednesday, Republican Reps. John Moolenaar, Brian Mast and Rick Crawford, who chair the House China, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees, asked Huang to attend an in-person, closed-door joint briefing on Nov. 18 about his interactions with Alice Huang and Nvidia's "security protocols against foreign adversary espionage," CNBC reported.

"Recent reports raise significant national security concerns regarding the PRC's access to sensitive U.S. technology and information," the lawmakers wrote. The briefing date falls one day after Nvidia is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on Nov. 17.

Huang has until Nov. 11 to accept or propose another date, according to The Next Web. Nvidia did not say whether he would attend.

In a statement to CNBC, an Nvidia spokesperson said, "Our regional cloud customers receive ordinary business information — not sensitive NVIDIA trade secrets—and zero information relevant to national security." Spokesman John Rizzo told Semafor, "We're confident that if the U.S. government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know."

U.S. officials have also examined whether Megaspeed helped China obtain restricted Nvidia chips, Tom's Hardware reported. The United States bars Nvidia's most advanced AI chips from being sold to China. Megaspeed has said it hired outside lawyers to look into the claims, according to The Next Web.