Nvidia shares fall after ‘honeytrap’ Chinese spy investigation launched

Alice Huang spent years in Nvidia’s orbit

This photo shows Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang with a woman confirmed by a Reuters source to be Alice Huang in Taipei, Taiwan released on June 7, 2024. Obtained by Reuters/via REUTERS

At the heart of the biggest controversy to confront Nvidia in its three-decade history is a former television journalist who became a semiconductor power broker renting advanced chips to China’s top firms.

Huang Le, also known as Alice Huang, has been identified in a series of reports as a spy who was recruited by Beijing to target Nvidia’s chief executive officer Jensen Huang. She came into his orbit after founding Megaspeed International, the largest buyer of Nvidia’s chips in Southeast Asia — a major route for smuggling the firm’s advanced hardware into China.