US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly raised concerns about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s alleged relationship with a business executive suspected of having links to Chinese intelligence, according to a report by The New York Times. The concerns were reportedly outlined in a memo circulated among US officials last spring, ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit to China in May.
The memo focused on Huang’s association with Alice Huang, whom US intelligence agencies suspected of gathering information for Beijing. The revelations have added to growing scrutiny of Nvidia’s business dealings with China, particularly concerns that restricted advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips could be reaching Chinese companies through third-party intermediaries.
According to people familiar with the matter cited by the NYT, the intelligence concerns emerged while Jensen Huang was seeking to preserve Nvidia’s access to the Chinese market.
Huang Initially Excluded from Trump’s China Delegation
Despite heading one of the world’s most valuable technology companies and playing a major role in the global AI industry, Jensen Huang was initially excluded from the list of prominent business executives invited to accompany Trump on his China trip.
It remains unclear whether the decision was directly linked to Rubio’s intelligence memo. However, several administration officials reportedly expressed concerns about Huang’s influence on the president’s approach to AI regulation.
Huang has repeatedly opposed tighter restrictions on advanced AI chip exports, arguing that Nvidia should retain access to the Chinese market and be allowed to sell products other than its latest-generation technology there.
Trump eventually intervened after media reports highlighted Huang’s absence from the delegation. The president asked the Nvidia chief to join the trip by meeting Air Force One during a stopover in Alaska.
Trump even drafted a social media post welcoming Huang’s participation, describing him as the “Great Jensen Huang” and praising the business leaders accompanying him as brilliant individuals who would work their magic in China.
Trump Had Earlier Been Briefed About Intelligence Surveillance
The latest revelations follow an earlier NYT report that Trump had been briefed approximately a year earlier about US intelligence agencies’ electronic surveillance of Alice Huang.
According to the report, intelligence agencies suspected that she was working for Chinese intelligence services. The surveillance also reportedly uncovered a close relationship between Alice Huang and a US citizen.
When officials sought to identify the American, whose identity was normally protected under foreign intelligence surveillance rules, they discovered that the individual was Jensen Huang.
Trump reportedly chose not to take action at the time. The president viewed Nvidia’s advanced chips as important to America’s competition with China in artificial intelligence and considered the company’s success significant for the US stock market.
Asked on Sunday whether he regretted not acting on the intelligence, Trump said he did not.
“No, I don’t think so,” he told reporters.
Trump also defended Huang’s continued leadership of Nvidia, describing him as an “honorable guy”.
“I think he probably has an excuse for it. You have to hear it,” the president said.
Nvidia Opens Investigation After Huang Acknowledges Relationship
The controversy escalated on Sunday after Jensen Huang reportedly acknowledged to Nvidia that he had been intimate with Alice Huang.
Nvidia subsequently announced that it was opening an investigation into its chief executive’s conduct. However, the company said it had “no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised”.
In a message to employees, Huang apologised for his personal conduct and acknowledged the impact of his actions on his family.
“I was unfaithful to my wife,” he said. “My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”
Nvidia has maintained that Huang’s interactions with Alice Huang were not unusual and were consistent with the meetings he routinely holds with customers.
The company has also stated that customers such as Megaspeed do not receive classified business information.
Why Megaspeed Has Come Under US Scrutiny
Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company, has attracted attention from US authorities because of the scale of its purchases of Nvidia products and questions surrounding its business operations.
Despite reportedly having a limited local presence and what the NYT described as essentially a storefront office, Megaspeed purchased approximately $2 billion worth of Nvidia products in recent years.
The company develops data centres across Southeast Asia and rents out computing capacity to Alibaba, the Chinese internet giant.
US officials reportedly suspect that Megaspeed may have helped transfer restricted advanced Nvidia AI chips into China in violation of export controls.
Alice Huang was also reported to have connections with senior executives across the AI chip industry, including Jensen Huang and leaders at Gigabyte, a major assembler of Nvidia-powered supercomputers.
The two were photographed together with other industry executives at a bar in Taipei in 2024, around the time Megaspeed began making multibillion-dollar purchases of advanced AI chips. However, when they first met remains unclear.
Alice Huang has not responded to attempts to contact her, according to the NYT.
The US State Department and the White House declined to comment on the report.
Nvidia’s China Business Faces Growing Geopolitical Scrutiny
The controversy highlights the growing intersection of artificial intelligence, international trade and national security.
As Washington seeks to restrict China’s access to advanced semiconductor technology, Nvidia faces the challenge of balancing its commercial interests in the Chinese market with US export-control requirements.
The allegations surrounding Alice Huang, the reported intelligence memo and Megaspeed’s chip purchases have brought renewed attention to the security concerns surrounding the global AI supply chain. However, the reported intelligence suspicions do not, by themselves, establish that Nvidia’s technology or confidential information was compromised.