Suspicion of espionage at Nvidia: Artificial intimacy

When the Chinese Foreign Ministry was confronted with the most explosive espionage allegations in recent memory, spokesman Guo Jiakun dismissed it: "The claim of Chinese espionage is a complete fabrication and defamatory." Beijing's state media also describe Jensen Huang's affair with a Chinese woman, who, according to US sources, was reported by state security, as a conspiracy exaggerated by the New York Times and Financial Times.

This reaction was predictable. But the case surrounding Alice Huang, Huang Le in Chinese, is strongly reminiscent of the “honeytrap” methods that the Chinese state has repeatedly used successfully in the past to secure influence over Western entrepreneurs and politicians with the help of attractive women.

How seriously the USA is now taking the problem became known in 2025: At that time, the AP news agency reported that under the then US ambassador in Beijing, Nicholas Burns, a regulation came into force that categorically prohibits US government employees in China and their family members from having romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens.

It is generally common for diplomats that intimate acquaintances with people from certain countries are subject to strict regulations. But a fundamental “non-fraternization policy,” as the ban on contact is known in English, has not existed since the end of the Cold War.

The fears are not paranoia. A recent example concerns ex-U.S. Federal Reserve employee John Harold Rogers, who had access to classified information about U.S. monetary policy. At a 2013 conference in Shanghai, he was approached by a Chinese intelligence officer who built a close relationship with Rogers over the years - and also helped him meet and marry a much younger Chinese woman. In return, the US economist is said to have passed on confidential documents on the Fed's interest rate decisions. This summer he was sentenced to more than three years in prison.

But who is the Chinese Alice Huang who was able to secure access to probably the most powerful entrepreneur in the world? A former colleague has now confirmed that she worked for Chinese state television CCTV in Beijing for around four years. The suspected spy is later said to have been stationed at the local television station Hunan TV before moving into the financial industry - to the British-Hong Kong bank HSBC, then CITIC Securities. She eventually moved to Singapore-based computing company Megaspeed, which has purchased AI chips from Nvidia on a large scale. As his manager, she managed to get in touch with Jensen Huang at business events in Asia.

What followed is surprisingly well documented. Huang had posted dozens of photos on the Chinese app Wechat, where she can be seen in familiar situations with the Nvidia boss - mostly with red wine and rich food, and in some photos also cuddled up together. Some of these images have been circulating online for some time, but most observers dismissed them as AI-generated - incorrectly, as it now turns out.

Nevertheless, many questions remain unanswered. “If she were a spy, would she publish photos like this?” says journalist Wang Zhian, who also previously worked for Chinese state television before moving into exile in Japan and has since published analyzes on his YouTube channel.

The Taiwanese semiconductor analyst Andrew Lu explains the timing of the publication of the affair with interests in the US secret service. Apparently they wanted to discredit Huang's involvement in China. The Nvidia boss had vehemently advocated easing export restrictions for the Chinese market. “The scandal was an explosive device detonated at exactly the right time,” Lu wrote in his personal newsletter – albeit without evidence.