He stands at the center of the scandal that the world is talking about. Who is Alice Huang accused of espionage?

Chinese businessman Alice Huang, who is at the center of the global artificial intelligence competition between the USA and China and who US intelligence has concluded is an intelligence element working on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, is known for the relationships she has established with technology giants, having risen from the Shanghai finance world.

The New York Times (NYT) analysis, based on 15 years of company documents and interviews with more than 6 people and government officials familiar with the subject and business network, revealed the background and business network of Alice Huang, whose Chinese name is Huang Le and who is not related to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Recently, it was revealed that Jensen Huang was having an extramarital affair with Alice Huang, who is suspected of spying on behalf of Chinese intelligence.

According to reports based on the New York Times and US intelligence officials, it is estimated that the Chinese Ministry of State Security may have recruited Alice Huang to collect information.

It was determined that the two met in Singapore at the end of 2023 and met in places such as Shanghai, Taiwan and Silicon Valley in the last three years.

Singapore-based data center company Megaspeed, where Alice Huang is an executive, has become one of Southeast Asia's largest buyers, purchasing over $4 billion worth of chips from Nvidia in recent years.

The US government is investigating on suspicion that Megaspeed smuggled these advanced semiconductors to China in violation of US sanctions.

After the allegations were reported in the press, Jensen Huang admitted that he had betrayed his wife and apologized to his family and colleagues in a written message he sent to Nvidia employees.

Huang announced that he would fully cooperate with investigations initiated to protect the company and US national security.

According to the BBC, Nvidia's Board of Directors launched an independent internal investigation into the incident.

Although the company has stated that there is no evidence that trade secrets have been leaked so far, investors have filed a lawsuit on the grounds that they misled shareholders by concealing the relationship.

A CAREER FROM TELEVISION JOURNALISM TO THE WORLD OF SHANGHAI FINANCE

According to her online resume, Alice Huang started her career as a television reporter for 4 years, and later worked in the private banking department of HSBC and the Chinese state-backed investment bank CITIC Securities.

The Chinese executive, whose earliest company records date back to 2010, is at Beihu No. 1, a restaurant frequented by officials in Beijing and known for its themed saunas, steam rooms and a buffet featuring foie gras, hairy crab and Häagen-Dazs. He was involved in a small "sports and entertainment club" company within the private golf club called 9.

Alice Huang, who invested in a Chinese medical equipment manufacturer that will offer its shares to the public in Hong Kong through an offshore company in the next few years, operated in Shanghai's financial world for many years and, according to those who met her, easily mingled with both Chinese and US technology executives.

Alice Huang worked closely with Kang Wei, a 51-year-old fund manager who rose to fame as a stock market strategist in China in the 2000s, was seen as a "wunderkind" by the Chinese financial media, and turned to private equity investments, including online gaming companies, in the 2010s.

Kang Wei, who was introduced to Chinese investors and employees as Alice Huang's wife, has been fined at least twice by China's securities regulator for failing to report his holdings in publicly traded companies and has battled other investors for control of the company, regulatory records show.

The two, who visited a state-backed automotive technology company together in the eastern city of Nanjing in August 2023, were running a network of interconnected companies making takeovers in Shanghai investment circles by 2020.

In this network, which received a project to help build and operate an artificial intelligence computing center in Shanghai for internet giant Tencent in the spring of the same year, Kang Wei boasted about Alice Huang's connections with the Nvidia CEO in order to raise money for their joint business, one of the sources said.

After the US government imposed restrictions on the sale of advanced artificial intelligence chips to China, out of concern that they would give Beijing economic and military superiority in late 2022, in order to receive these components, companies had to be based outside China and have no obvious ownership ties with the country.

In 2023, Alice Huang used a company in the British Virgin Islands to purchase the Singapore subsidiary of the online gaming company 7Road, which was connected to its network in Shanghai, and transferred this company, which she renamed to Megaspeed, to a Singaporean shell company later in the same year.

Alice Huang, who retained control of daily operations after the takeover, restructured Megaspeed, backed by wealthy technology investors with connections to local data centers in China, the government and the defense industry.

Megaspeed, the company of Alice Huang, who met with Jensen Huang at an Italian restaurant in Singapore in December 2023 and posed with a smile, gained access to the sought-after components by choosing Nvidia cloud partner just 4 days after the change of ownership.

According to social media photos, Alice Huang, who met with Jensen Huang in the last three years at the Pujiang Huaiyan restaurant in Shanghai, at Nvidia's Silicon Valley headquarters, at a golf resort south of San Jose in California, at a golf course shared on WeChat, and in Taiwan, demonstrated this closeness at a technology event in Taipei in June 2024.

Parker Schmitt, CEO of data software provider NetThunder, who attended the event, stated that just after midnight, Alice Huang offered to call the Nvidia leader while chatting with technology executives. "She said to us, 'I bet I can get Jensen here,' and then Jensen showed up right away," he said.

Jensen Huang, who had already planned to attend the party with two Nvidia executives, arrived at the venue a short time later and had a glass of whiskey with the group.

Explaining that Alice Huang wanted to be seen as a talented sales manager and that her social media was full of photos of wine restaurants and golf courses, Schmitt said, "Photos taken with Jensen are a source of pride" in the technology industry.