Here’s the logic behind why the U.S. suspects a woman named Huang Le of being a spy. (I wrote about this in my article, but it was too long, so here’s a condensed version.)
First, she was once an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, a company with roots in China’s gaming industry that shifted to AI computing in 2023.
From 2024 to 2026, its Malaysian affiliates purchased at least $4.8 billion worth of advanced AI equipment, including a large number of Nvidia GPUs. (This is far beyond what an ordinary company could afford.)
The procurement channels were rather unusual:
Megaspeed bought the equipment through Aivres, a U.S. server supplier linked to China’s Inspur Group, then deployed the GPUs in data centers in Malaysia, Indonesia, and elsewhere.
It then rented out the computing power to Chinese companies, including clients such as Alibaba, through cloud computing.
In other words, the chips didn’t have to be shipped to China for Chinese companies to use Nvidia computing power remotely from overseas.
This model isn’t necessarily illegal in itself, but the U.S. suspects Megaspeed may have used it to help Chinese clients circumvent chip export restrictions, or even illegally rerouted some of the chips to China.
In 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce also inspected one of Megaspeed’s data centers and found some Nvidia equipment still in its boxes and not yet operational, further raising suspicions about where the chips were actually going.
Huang Le, as a former company executive, had also developed a close personal relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
While monitoring Huang Le, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that she was passing information to Beijing and discovered that she was close to Jensen Huang.
The U.S. suspects she was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security, and that her purpose in getting close to Jensen Huang was to obtain Nvidia’s business information, as well as information about Jensen Huang’s lobbying of Trump to ease restrictions on chip exports to China—and perhaps even to try to influence U.S. chip policy.
That’s what lies behind this whole spy scandal.
But for now, this is really just a suspicion on the part of U.S. intelligence, and I don’t think anything will ultimately come of it.
The Democrats chose this moment to bring it up. You can read between the lines.
First, she was once an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, a company with roots in China’s gaming industry that shifted to AI computing in 2023.
From 2024 to 2026, its Malaysian affiliates purchased at least $4.8 billion worth of advanced AI equipment, including a large number of Nvidia GPUs. (This is far beyond what an ordinary company could afford.)
The procurement channels were rather unusual:
Megaspeed bought the equipment through Aivres, a U.S. server supplier linked to China’s Inspur Group, then deployed the GPUs in data centers in Malaysia, Indonesia, and elsewhere.
It then rented out the computing power to Chinese companies, including clients such as Alibaba, through cloud computing.
In other words, the chips didn’t have to be shipped to China for Chinese companies to use Nvidia computing power remotely from overseas.
This model isn’t necessarily illegal in itself, but the U.S. suspects Megaspeed may have used it to help Chinese clients circumvent chip export restrictions, or even illegally rerouted some of the chips to China.
In 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce also inspected one of Megaspeed’s data centers and found some Nvidia equipment still in its boxes and not yet operational, further raising suspicions about where the chips were actually going.
Huang Le, as a former company executive, had also developed a close personal relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
While monitoring Huang Le, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that she was passing information to Beijing and discovered that she was close to Jensen Huang.
The U.S. suspects she was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security, and that her purpose in getting close to Jensen Huang was to obtain Nvidia’s business information, as well as information about Jensen Huang’s lobbying of Trump to ease restrictions on chip exports to China—and perhaps even to try to influence U.S. chip policy.
That’s what lies behind this whole spy scandal.
But for now, this is really just a suspicion on the part of U.S. intelligence, and I don’t think anything will ultimately come of it.
The Democrats chose this moment to bring it up. You can read between the lines.
