11/10/2026

AI Industry News: The Spy Allegation Around Nvidia's CEO, With No Supporting Evidence Made Public Yet

AI業界ニュース：NVIDIA フアンCEOをめぐる「スパイ疑惑」、裏付ける証拠はまだ公開されていない

US media report that American intelligence agencies believe Alice Huang, a woman close to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, is a Chinese spy. As of November 10, however, that claim rests on anonymous sources and an unpublished memo, no one has been charged, and the US government has not made any evidence public. We separate what is confirmed from what is not, and look at what each side says, why the US reaction is so strong, and what it means for the data center industry.

Two Sheep Co., Ltd. tracks major developments in the AI industry using public information such as company announcements and media reports. This article looks at the spy reports surrounding Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, as of 11:30 Japan time on November 10, 2026 (21:30 US Eastern time on November 9).

Our conclusion first: the claim that Alice Huang (Huang Le) is a Chinese spy currently rests on anonymous sources and a memo that has not been made public. At the time of writing, no one has been charged with espionage, and the US government has not confirmed the claim or presented evidence in public. In our view, the public information is not enough to conclude that she is a spy, and the reaction in Congress, the stock market and public debate has run ahead of the evidence.

Key Points

What was reported: citing anonymous sources, The New York Times and others say US intelligence concluded Alice Huang passed information to Beijing, and a memo says Chinese intelligence recruited her
Still unproven: as of November 10, no one has been charged with espionage, the US government has not confirmed the claim or shown evidence in public, and the memo has not been released
Denials and pushback: Singapore denies investigating her alleged intelligence ties; Nvidia's board sees no reason to believe secrets or national security were compromised; China denies the claims
A separate track: Singapore police are investigating Megaspeed, where she worked; the US Justice Department is reportedly probing possible chip export violations. That is a separate question from espionage
Our view: a number of past US cases involving China have not held up in court. Until evidence is made public, she should not be treated as a proven spy

1. How the Story Unfolded

October 2025: The New York Times reported that the US Commerce Department was looking into whether Megaspeed, a Singapore company, had helped Chinese companies get around export controls. The reports at the time did not mention espionage
December 2025: Bloomberg reported on the scale of Megaspeed's imports of Nvidia chips and said the inquiry was looking at Alice Huang's role. Megaspeed called the report misleading
October 29, 2026: citing anonymous sources, The New York Times reported that US intelligence agencies, after monitoring Alice Huang, concluded that she was passing information to Beijing, and that she had a close relationship with Jensen Huang. Nvidia said their dealings were not unusual and that customers receive no information relevant to national security
October 30: citing people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported that officials in the US, Taiwan and Singapore had grown concerned that this executive, who is close to Jensen Huang, was a Chinese intelligence source. It also reported that US officials concluded last year that she was sharing information with the Chinese government, and that Singapore and Taiwan had separately investigated her ties to China. China's Foreign Ministry called the reports groundless speculation
October 31: Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs issued a clarification saying Singapore officials had never expressed such concerns and had not investigated her in this respect. It also published the police reply that the investigation into Megaspeed is ongoing
November 5: the Republican chairs of three House committees (Foreign Affairs, the Select Committee on China, and Intelligence) released a joint letter, dated November 4, proposing that Jensen Huang attend a closed-door briefing on November 18 and asking him to accept or propose another date by November 11. Citing recent reports, the letter called her a publicly reported Chinese intelligence asset. It is a request, not a subpoena
November 6 to 8: The New York Times and the Financial Times reported that a classified memo circulated among senior US officials this spring said China's Ministry of State Security had recruited her to gather information about Jensen Huang and US AI chips. The Financial Times reported that the memo described the relationship as romantic
November 8: in a letter to all employees, Jensen Huang admitted that he had been unfaithful to his wife and apologized, without naming the other person. On the national security concerns raised in the reports, he said only that he supports the board's independent review and will cooperate fully. The board announced the same day that a committee of independent directors, assisted by outside counsel, will conduct the review, and said it currently has "no reason to believe" that national security or Nvidia's confidential information was compromised
November 9: Nvidia shares closed down about 4.3% at $178.67, and a shareholder filed a securities class action the same day. President Trump said Jensen Huang told him he had "no idea" and said he really believes him. Citing two law enforcement sources, CBS reported that the national security division of the US Justice Department is investigating whether Megaspeed violated chip export restrictions

2. What Is Confirmed and What Is Not

Supported by public statements or documents

Jensen Huang admitted being unfaithful to his wife (letter to employees, November 8), without naming the other person
Nvidia's board has started an independent review (statement, November 8); it has not reached a conclusion
The three House committee chairs have asked Jensen Huang to attend a briefing (letter, November 5)
Singapore police are still investigating Megaspeed (police reply published by Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs on October 31)
China's Foreign Ministry and its embassy in the US deny the espionage claim
Taiwan's Interior Minister Liu Shih-fang, asked in the Legislative Yuan on November 10, said, according to a reporter's summary, that national security agencies are actively investigating; Deputy Foreign Minister Chen Ming-chi said he has no evidence and no power to investigate. Taiwan has not confirmed that she is a spy, nor denied The Wall Street Journal's report that it had investigated her

Based only on anonymous sources

That US intelligence agencies concluded she passed information to China and was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security
That US agencies reportedly monitored her electronically for about a year
That the memo was reportedly drafted under the supervision of Secretary of State Marco Rubio
That the US Justice Department is investigating Megaspeed
That, according to The New York Times, President Trump was briefed about a year ago but took no action

Still unknown

What she passed on: The New York Times itself said it is unclear which intelligence agency monitored her or what specific information she passed on
Whether secrets leaked: Nvidia's board says it has no reason to believe so, but the review has not concluded
Whether Jensen Huang knew: according to The New York Times, officials believe he likely did not know, but some senior officials in the Trump administration have questioned whether he really did not; it is unclear whether that assessment has changed since
Where she is now: she has not responded to requests for comment, no lawyer has spoken publicly on her behalf, and her whereabouts are reported to be unknown

3. Why We Say the Evidence Falls Short

No charges and no court documents: as of November 10, there are no reports that she, Jensen Huang or Megaspeed has been charged, arrested or sanctioned over espionage. None of the US intelligence agencies has commented in public. President Trump said the FBI is looking into it "in terms of something else", without explaining what that means
The core claims come from anonymous sources: neither the memo nor the monitoring has been made public. The letter from the three House chairs also relies only on recent reports
Part of the story has already been officially denied: The Wall Street Journal reported that Singapore officials were concerned about and investigated her alleged ties to Chinese intelligence; Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs formally denied this. However, the ministry denied only an investigation into her alleged intelligence ties. According to Bloomberg, Singapore police questioned her in 2025 in the Megaspeed case and for a time barred her from leaving the country; the ministry did not address this
The public material shows only a personal connection: what outsiders can see are photos and TV footage of the two at the same events in Taipei, which show only that they knew each other personally
His policy views were public long before: Jensen Huang has said in public since at least May 2023 that export controls on China hurt the US technology industry. In May 2026 he also said in public that China should not get Nvidia's most advanced chips. His policy views alone do not show that she influenced him
Courts set a high bar: former Google engineer Linwei Ding was found guilty of economic espionage by a jury in January 2026, but in August the judge threw out those convictions because the evidence was insufficient to show he knew or intended that his actions would benefit the Chinese government, leaving only the trade secret theft convictions

The other side also needs to be considered

More than one outlet: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and NBC have all reported similar claims, each citing anonymous sources
Reportedly based on long-term monitoring: the assessment is said to rest on about a year of monitoring, not a single contact
The relationship part matches the reports: Jensen Huang did not name the other person in his letter to employees, but according to The New York Times he acknowledged to the board that he had been intimate with this executive. That matches the memo's description of a romantic relationship, as reported by the Financial Times. It does not prove she is a spy, but it shows the reports did not come from nowhere
Her business background: according to reports, she previously worked at a Shanghai investment fund, and her business associates had links to state-backed companies. That does not prove espionage, but such a background is easily seen as a risk

4. Why the US Reaction Is So Strong

Chips for China are a focus for both parties

In December 2025, President Trump announced that Nvidia could sell H200 chips to approved customers in China, with the US government receiving 25% of the revenue. The newer Blackwell and Rubin chips were excluded
In January 2026, the House passed the Remote Access Security Act by 369 to 22. It would extend export controls to remote use of AI chips through cloud services. As of our check, the Senate had not passed it
In March 2026, the US Justice Department charged three people, including a co-founder of Super Micro, with diverting about $2.5 billion worth of servers with Nvidia GPUs to China. Super Micro itself is not a defendant
Since this story broke, members of Congress from both parties have asked Jensen Huang and Nvidia to explain themselves to Congress

Past cases

The China Initiative, launched in 2018, ended in February 2022. The Justice Department said at the time that grouping cases under that name had created a harmful perception that it applied a lower standard to cases connected to China
A December 2021 tally by MIT Technology Review found that 130 (88%) of the 148 people charged under the initiative were of Chinese heritage, and 40 had pleaded guilty or been convicted. About 64% of the cases were still unresolved at the time
Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at Los Alamos, was charged with 59 counts and held for about nine months before pleading guilty to one count in 2000 and being released. The judge apologized to him in court
Temple University professor Xiaoxing Xi was charged in 2015, and prosecutors dropped the case the same year. Charges against Sherry Chen, a hydrologist at the US National Weather Service, were dropped in 2015, and she settled with the government in 2022. University of Tennessee professor Anming Hu was acquitted in 2021, and charges against MIT professor Gang Chen were dropped in 2022
Some cases have been upheld in court. Xu Yanjun, an officer of China's Ministry of State Security, was convicted of economic espionage and other charges in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022
Note that most of the dropped or acquitted cases above involved charges such as fraud or false statements, not passing information to China. They show that US suspicions often do not hold up, but they cannot be used to decide whether this case is true

The strongest reaction is not coming from the White House

According to The New York Times, President Trump was briefed about a year ago but took no action. Trump himself said on October 31 that he did not know about the specific thing, and on November 9 that he had read about it only not too long ago, adding that he believes Jensen Huang
From what we found, the strongest reactions have come from Congress, the stock market and litigation: the three House chairs wrote their letter based on media reports; the stock fell about 4.3% in a day (mainly attributed to this story, though Alphabet also announced two new AI chips that day); and a shareholder filed a securities lawsuit on the day of the fall

5. A Separate Track: Where the Chips Went

What Megaspeed is: a Singapore-based AI computing company and an Nvidia cloud partner that rents out Nvidia computing capacity at data centers in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. According to Bloomberg, it rents Nvidia chips to Alibaba; the Financial Times describes Alibaba as a core customer
Her role: according to reports, company records show she was a director and managing director of Megaspeed from March to November 2023. Other reports say she continued to act as the company's leader afterward
Scale: The New York Times, citing trade records, reported that Megaspeed's Malaysian affiliate bought at least $4.8 billion of equipment containing Nvidia chips between June 2024 and February 2026. Bloomberg, using customs data, reported that Megaspeed imported about 50,000 more Nvidia chips than Nvidia counted at its data centers
What each side says: Nvidia says its review found no diversion to China. Megaspeed says checks by the US Commerce Department, Malaysia's Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry and Nvidia found no violations, but the first two have not confirmed this in public. According to The New York Times, the Commerce Department's inquiry was not closed but handed to the Justice Department. Singapore police say their investigation is ongoing (Singapore says it does not enforce other countries' unilateral export controls and acts on breaches of its own laws). CBS, citing law enforcement sources, reports that the US Justice Department is also investigating
How it relates to the espionage claim: the US investigation is about whether chips went to China in breach of the rules, which is an export control question; Singapore's is about whether its own laws were broken. Even if problems with the chip flows are confirmed, that would not by itself prove that she engaged in espionage. Equally, if the chips are found to be in order, that would not prove she is not a spy

6. What to Watch Next

November 11 and 18: the three House chairs proposed a closed-door briefing on November 18 and asked Jensen Huang to accept or propose another date by November 11. At the time of writing, Nvidia has not said publicly whether he will attend
Nvidia's board review: the committee members, the outside law firm and the timeline have not been disclosed
The Megaspeed investigations: the findings of the US Justice Department and Singapore police
US government action: whether it makes evidence public or files charges
US-China summit: according to reports, the US and Chinese leaders will meet next week during the APEC meetings in Shenzhen, with AI on the agenda

7. What It Means for Data Centers and Computing Infrastructure

Whether or not the spy claim is true, the Megaspeed case has already brought tougher scrutiny to GPU cloud services and data centers in Southeast Asia. Since July 2025, Malaysia has required permits to export or transship high-performance AI chips of US origin. In May 2026, US Commerce Department guidance restated that a license is required to export advanced computing chips to companies whose headquarters or ultimate parent is in China or certain other countries, wherever those companies are located (a requirement in place since 2023)
In August 2026, the Keelung District Prosecutors Office in Taiwan charged nine people with offenses including breach of trust and document forgery (Taiwanese law does not itself make this kind of export a crime) in a case involving the export of servers with Nvidia chips to China. According to prosecutors, 50 of the servers went through Indonesia and eight through Japan, and the rest were sent directly to China. Japan was used as a transit point, and businesses in Japan also need to make sure their services are not used this way
For data center and GPU cloud operators, checking each customer's ultimate parent company, actual users and intended use, and keeping written records, is now essential basic work

We believe that calling a person a spy requires evidence that can be tested in public. Until the US government makes evidence public or files charges, treating Alice Huang as a proven spy is unfair both to her and to the industry. At the same time, compliance on where chips go is a separate matter, and operators should carry out their checks in line with the rules. This is our view of the story; it is not a judgment that anyone is guilty or innocent.

8. About Two Sheep Co., Ltd.

Two Sheep Co., Ltd., headquartered in the Telecom Center Building in Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo, provides on-site work at data centers and the shipping and installation of IT equipment.

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Migrations, connectivity and optical modules: we handle data center migrations, arrange IP transit and private lines, and sell optical modules (ModuleSheep)
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Main Sources

About This Article

This article was compiled independently by Two Sheep from announcements by companies and public bodies, media reports and other public information available as of 11:30 Japan time on November 10, 2026. Investigations and reporting are ongoing, and the situation may change.
Most claims about intelligence come from anonymous sources, which we could not verify independently. We could not read the original articles of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times directly, and relied on reports about them by other outlets.
This article does not judge anyone guilty or innocent, and does not support or criticize any country, party or policy.
Statements that we "found no" information refer only to the public information we checked. They do not mean that such facts do not exist.
This article is for information only and does not recommend any company, security or investment.
Companies are named only to illustrate industry trends; their mention does not indicate any business relationship with Two Sheep. Names of companies, products and services are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Contact: Japan@2sheep.jp, or use the contact form on this website.