Woman in Nvidia CEO scandal tied to Huawei data center

Alice Huang, the businesswoman at the center of the scandal that ended Jensen Huang's tenure at Nvidia ↘ 4.34%, held stakes in Chinese companies connected to a data center whose key customer was Huawei Cloud. CNBC Comcast Corporation ↘ 0.88% reported the findings on Thursday, citing research that private intelligence firm Tesari shared exclusively with the network. Nvidia has named Huawei a top competitor in AI chips. The ties overlapped with the period when she and Jensen Huang were first seen together in public, in December 2023.cnbc.com

The report came out the same day Nvidia announced Huang's resignation, and it adds to questions about a relationship U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was a Chinese spy operation.politico.com

A web of holdings

According to Chinese corporate records compiled by Tesari, Alice Huang, whose Chinese name is Huang Le, became a co-owner of Shanghai Hexi, a firm that invests in tech and data centers, as early as 2016. In 2021, Hexi bought 27% of the data center developer Shanghai Century Longteng and held the stake until 2024. Century Longteng owned 50.1% of Shenzhen Yifeng Technology, a facility whose key customer was Huawei Cloud. Hexi also guaranteed the loans used to finance the Shenzhen data center. Her husband, Kang Wei, who founded Hexi, became an executive at Century Longteng in 2022 and attended the signing of its Huawei agreement, CNBC reported.cnbc.com

It is unclear whether the Shenzhen facility got Nvidia GPUs. However, Hexi's partner in Century Longteng, Zhejiang Century Huatong Group, began buying the chips in 2023. The ownership links alone do not show that any chips were transferred to Huawei without authorization. Tesari analysts said the structure was so convoluted that they suspect it was designed to hide the relationship.sg.finance.yahoo.com

"This activity, which surfaced through our analysis of Alice's network, warrants a national security and [technology] counterproliferation investigation," said Brian Andersen, a Tesari vice president and former Homeland Security Investigations supervisory special agent. He said possible charges could include export-control violations, conspiracy and smuggling. The records do not show whether Jensen Huang knew about the ties. Nvidia and Huawei did not respond to CNBC, and Alice Huang could not be reached.cnbc.com

Mounting investigations

Alice Huang was an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed. CNBC reported that Megaspeed grew out of a 7Road subsidiary, after she sold her cloud business Osmanthus to 7Road in 2019. Megaspeed is under investigation in the U.S. and Singapore over alleged chip smuggling into China. The Wall Street Journal News Corp ↘ 2.54% reported that the Justice Department is leading multiple investigations involving her. Singapore has also banned her from returning to the country.news9.com+2

Jensen Huang admitted to the affair on November 8. Nvidia's board then launched an independent investigation, saying it had "no reason to believe" that national security or company secrets had been compromised. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress is now interim CEO. Lawmakers from both parties still want Huang to testify, and China has rejected the spying allegations.thehill.com+2