The Huawei connection: Alleged Chinese spy Alice Huang in Jensen Huang affair saga linked to Nvidia rival

Alice Huang, the woman suspected by US authorities of spying for China and reportedly involved in a romantic relationship with former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, had business interests linked to data centre operations serving Chinese technology giant Huawei, Nvidia’s biggest competitor, according to a CNBC investigation.

The previously unreported connections raise questions about potential conflicts of interest and whether Alice Huang’s business network had links to Huawei while she was also associated with businesses dealing in Nvidia computing infrastructure. The precise timing of her relationship with Jensen Huang remains unclear, although the two were first publicly seen together in December 2023, CNBC reported, citing findings by private intelligence firm Tesari.

Also read: US probes alleged spy Alice Huang over suspected Super Micro chip smuggling to China: Report

The investigation traced a network of Chinese companies and financial transactions connecting Alice Huang, whose Chinese name is Huang Le, to a data centre in Shenzhen that counted Huawei Cloud among its key customers.

Alice Huang's business links to Huawei

According to Chinese corporate records and media reports reviewed by Tesari, Alice Huang sold a cloud computing business called Osmanthus to Chinese gaming company 7Road in 2019. A Singapore-based subsidiary of 7Road was subsequently spun off as Megaspeed in 2023.

Megaspeed later emerged as a significant Nvidia customer, helping facilitate at least $7.5 billion in Nvidia chip shipments to Chinese companies, according to a report by The Information.

Separately, Alice Huang became a co-owner of Shanghai Hexi, a financial firm investing heavily in technology and data centres, as early as 2016. In 2021, Hexi acquired a 27% stake in data centre developer Shanghai Century Longteng, retaining it until 2024.

Century Longteng, in turn, held a controlling 50.1% stake in Shenzhen Yifeng Technology, whose data centre in Shenzhen had Huawei Cloud as its key customer. Hexi also guaranteed loans used to finance the facility.

Alice Huang's business interests therefore extended to a company with an ownership stake in infrastructure providing computing capacity to Huawei, CNBC reported, based on corporate records and Chinese media reports compiled by Tesari.

It remains unclear whether the Shenzhen facility acquired Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs). However, its majority owner, Zhejiang Century Huatong Group, began purchasing the chips in 2023. The company was also a business partner of Hexi through their joint ownership of Century Longteng.

Also read: Nvidia faced pressure to boost its AI backstop before Jensen Huang's exit

National security concerns over China connection

Brian Andersen, Tesari's vice president for national security applications and a former supervisory special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, said the findings warranted scrutiny by US authorities.

He said the activity could merit a national security and technology counterproliferation investigation. If investigators established that controlled equipment had been transferred to Huawei without authorisation, potential charges could include export-control violations, conspiracy and smuggling.

Tesari analysts also told CNBC they suspected the complicated corporate structure was designed to obscure the relationships, based on their previous investigative experience.

Hexi exited its stake in Century Longteng in 2024, but connections to the Shenzhen data centre reportedly continued through individuals in Alice Huang's network. Her husband, Kang Wei, who founded Hexi, became an executive at Century Longteng in 2022 and attended the signing of its Huawei agreement.