Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Admits to Affair with Chinese Executive

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has acknowledged an affair with a Chinese executive, Alice Huang, who US intelligence officials believe was working for Beijing. In a message to Nvidia employees, Huang admitted to being unfaithful to his wife, Lori, since 1985, and apologized for hurting her and their children. This admission comes after reports that US intelligence officials had concluded Alice Huang was passing information to China.

Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, is a senior executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based data center company that rents out computing power from Nvidia chips. The company was spun off from a Chinese company in 2023. According to The Wall Street Journal, Alice Huang and Jensen Huang were photographed together in Taipei in 2024 and 2025. US officials suspect Megaspeed of helping smuggle restricted chips into China, and the Justice Department has taken over a federal investigation into the company.

The US intelligence report that led to concerns about Alice Huang's activities was circulated among senior US officials this spring. The memo cited intelligence that she was an asset of China's Ministry of State Security and had been recruited to gather information on Jensen Huang and possibly steer Nvidia toward pushing for its top chips to be sold in China. Beijing has rejected the allegations, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun calling the narrative "entirely baseless vilification and smearing."

The affair and potential security risks come at a time when Nvidia controls an estimated 90 percent of the market for chips used to train and run AI models. Washington has restricted sales of the most advanced chips to China since 2022 under the Biden administration. Jensen Huang has also been one of President Donald Trump's most influential informal advisers on AI. Last year, Huang pushed to sell Nvidia's most powerful chips in China, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials blocked the effort.

Trump allowed sales of a less advanced chip, with the US government taking a 25 percent cut. According to The New York Times, Trump was briefed on the intelligence roughly a year ago but did not act on it. When asked on Fox News whether Huang should remain CEO, Trump said he thought so, calling Huang "an honorable guy." Trump also said he did not regret not acting on the intelligence.

Nvidia's board has opened an independent probe into the matter, led by a committee of independent directors working with outside counsel. The board has stated that it has no reason to believe that national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, but the inquiry will examine all available information. Jensen Huang will remain CEO in the meantime. Republican House committee leaders have asked Huang to attend a closed-door briefing on Nvidia's security protocols in Washington on November 18.

Analysts predict that the episode will lead to multiple congressional inquiries. Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives predicted that Huang would likely keep his job in the near term but could be ousted depending on the internal inquiry's findings. George Chen of The Asia Group told AFP it would be "premature to conclude that Jensen poses a threat to US national security before the facts are fully established."

Key points

• Jensen Huang admits to affair with Chinese executive amid US intelligence concerns
• US intelligence officials suspect Chinese executive Alice Huang was working for Beijing
• Nvidia's board opens independent probe into the matter