Singapore withheld Huang Le’s passport for 8 months and received limited assistance from the US in the Huida chip investigation case

The Singaporean authorities seized the passport of then Megaspeed CEO Huang Le in June 2025 and detained her for eight months to prevent her from leaving the country. During this period, Singapore tried to seek assistance from the US government to investigate the possible shipment of Huida's advanced chips to China.

A source familiar with the matter told CBS News today that the Singapore government did not receive any meaningful assistance from Washington while Alice Huang was in Singapore. The source said that in the face of Singapore's request for help, Washington officials "have not responded positively" and have not provided any substantial help so far.

The Singaporean government issued a statement this week confirming that it had contacted the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to request assistance in the investigation.

Nvidia founder Jen-Hsun Huang, who spent more than 30 years building the global technology giant, stepped down this week due to an extramarital affair scandal. The central figure in the scandal was none other than Huang Le, a suspected Chinese spy.

People familiar with the matter told CBS News that since February 2025, Singaporean authorities have been investigating whether Huang Le and data center operator Megaspeed cooperated with California-based Supermicro to ship the Silicon Valley company's computer servers equipped with Huida's advanced chips to China.

Sources pointed out that Huang Le flew to Singapore in June 2025 and voluntarily accepted interviews with investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security in Singapore.

The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is responsible for controlling the export of sensitive products based on national security and economic considerations. According to a statement issued by Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs yesterday, the US authorities requested the interview as part of post-shipment verification to confirm whether the imported products have indeed reached the declared consignee.

On the same day that US officials interviewed Huang Le, Singapore police also interrogated her and decided to seize her passport. Sources said that it is still unclear where the Chinese Huang Le flew from when he flew to Singapore in June 2025.

However, sources told CBS News that as of February 2026, the Singapore Police Force had not filed any criminal charges against Huang Le, leaving her with no choice but to return her passport. Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement that authorities determined she had provided "inaccurate information" to downplay her role at Megaspeed and therefore banned her from re-entering Singapore.

Four days before that statement was released, Huang admitted that he had an extramarital affair with a woman. Sources confirmed to CBS News that the woman was Huang Le.

The focus of Singapore's investigation is whether Huang Le lied about the details of purchasing computer servers from Supermicro, thus violating Singapore law. Supermicro's servers use Huida's advanced chips and are used to run artificial intelligence (AI) software, data centers and cloud computing.

Investigators in Singapore have been trying to determine the true final destination of Supermicro servers ordered by Megaspeed. A second source familiar with the investigation told CBS News that the servers were believed to have been shipped to Malaysia, but investigators in Singapore suspect that "some or all" of them may have been subsequently transferred to China. Megaspeed denies any wrongdoing.

Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement that it had tried to contact Supermicro, but the US company had only "provided limited cooperation."

The New York Times reported on the 11th that Malaysia kept Huida chips in its territory and installed them in its own data centers, and then leased those data centers to China for use instead of actually shipping any chips to China.