Jensen Huang resigned as CEO of Nvidia on Thursday following disclosures regarding an affair with Alice Huang, a former director at Singapore-based technology firm Megaspeed whom U.S. intelligence officials accuse of passing secrets to Beijing.
The departure of Nvidia’s chief executive has left U.S. chipmakers without their leading voice on Capitol Hill, dramatically increasing the probability that Congress will enact a trio of export control proposals. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that a developing consensus in Congress is an important position to take, noting that the leadership change might change a few minds.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said lawmakers were more likely to approve chip export restrictions. The Trump administration is working with lawmakers on legislative fixes, and tech giant OpenAI is lobbying in support of the restrictions, according to reporting on the legislative push.
Alice Huang’s connection to cloud computing firm Megaspeed sits at the center of the security scandal. Singapore’s home ministry said that American inspectors arrived at Megaspeed in June 2025 to perform a post-delivery inspection while Huang was on-site, noting that this marked the nation’s initial awareness of the U.S. inquiry.
Corporate records show Huang’s direct involvement in the company’s birth. A firm linked to her acquired the Singapore arm of Chinese video game developer 7Road International in early 2023, promptly changing the name to Megaspeed International. Huang served as a director between March and November 2023. Within 12 months, company accounts filed in 2024 showed revenue jumping from $0 to almost US$300 million.
That same day, Singapore police interviewed Huang and impounded her passport. By then, she and Nvidia boss Jensen Huang had already been spotted together in public.
Alibaba was Megaspeed’s founding customer and is still its biggest. Alibaba was Megaspeed’s founding customer and is still its biggest, the Financial Times reported.
The U.S. investigation targets Megaspeed rather than Alibaba, and Megaspeed denies diverting chips. Amid news reports indicating that Washington is preparing to close the Singapore corridor, Alibaba shares dropped 7% on Thursday, marking their lowest closing price since January 2025.
The scandal unfolds as American companies increasingly adopt free open models from China. Duolingo co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn stated at Yahoo Finance Invest that each AI practice call on his app dropped from about 30 cents to “less than a cent,” Luis von Ahn, Duolingo co-founder and CEO, via Yahoo Finance by shifting to open weight models.
NYU Stern professor emeritus Nouriel Roubini said that Chinese open models are about 95% as good as American ones because “we allowed distillation — that’s over — and we allowed them through Singapore to get all these advanced chips,”.
The Commerce Department is completing regulations that will prohibit Chinese artificial intelligence enterprises from utilizing high-end processors within foreign-based data centers, with a focus on locations like Malaysia and Singapore. Trump said Sunday that he did not regret not acting on intelligence findings regarding the relationship between Jensen Huang and Alice Huang, calling him “an honorable guy,”.
Megaspeed denies diverting chips. Meanwhile, investigations continue.
Earlier coverage: Nvidia Launches Probe Into Jensen Huang's Ties to Alleged Chinese Spy
