To get to the secrets of the most powerful man in the global chip industry, Chinese spies didn't need to hack Nvidia's servers or infiltrate its laboratories. It was enough to enter his bedroom.
According to the suspicions of US intelligence, that is precisely what Alice Huang, the Chinese businesswoman who had an extramarital affair with Jensen Huang, the billionaire founder of the technology giant, would have done. Behind that relationship could hide an operation by one of the largest and most secretive spy agencies on the planet: the Ministry of State Security (MSS), Beijing's secret service.
A US intelligence report maintains that the MSS would have recruited Alice to approach the tycoon, obtain confidential information and influence his business decisions with a strategic objective: to provide China with access to Nvidia's most advanced artificial intelligence chips, subject to Washington's export restrictions.
The story contains a striking paradox. The MSS itself has been warning Chinese citizens for years about so-called "honey traps", operations in which foreign agents use sex and romantic relationships to obtain confidential information.
The Chinese agency has an official channel on WeChat, the country's most used messaging application, equivalent to WhatsApp in the West, where it publishes continuous warnings about seductive spies in the service of enemy powers.
Now, the tables seem to have turned: it is precisely the Beijing secret service that is suspected of having used the mistress of the head of Nvidia to access its technological secrets.
Suspicions have been enough to transform an infidelity into an international espionage scandal, with the technological battle between Washington and Beijing as a backdrop. But let's focus on the MSS.
It doesn't have the Hollywood reputation of the CIA or tuxedo agents like the James Bond of Britain's MI6. But its tentacles reach companies, universities and governments. Founded in 1983, it concentrates tasks that other countries distribute among several agencies: foreign espionage, counterespionage, cyber operations and surveillance of threats to the Communist Party within China. It is considered one of the largest civil intelligence services on the planet, although the number of agents and its budget remain secret.
His boss doesn't look like he came out of an action movie either. This is a 67-year-old physicist named Chen Yixin, who quickly changed formulas for politics. He rose in the province of Zhejiang, where he met leader Xi Jinping and became one of his trusted men. He held key positions in the apparatus that controls police, judges and prosecutors and participated in the anti-corruption campaigns led by the now president of China.
In February 2020, when the city of Wuhan became the epicenter of the pandemic, Beijing sent Chen to oversee the crisis and preserve social order following outrage over the death of doctor Li Wenliang, reprimanded by local authorities for warning of the outbreak before the virus had a name. A couple of years later, Xi appointed him Minister of State Security, going on to direct the great machinery that hunts foreign spies and searches for secrets in other countries. The case of the Nvidia boss has now put that second mission under the spotlight.
Beijing's spy networks
It is not the first time that a Chinese operation has shaken Washington. Kevin Mallory, a former CIA agent, received a LinkedIn message from a supposed recruiter in 2017. He traveled to Shanghai twice and received a Samsung prepared to exchange clandestine messages. He was paid $25,000 for transmitting classified information and ended up sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Jerry Chun Shing Lee, another former CIA agent, also fell into the Chinese network. In 2010, two Chinese intelligence officers offered him $100,000 and the promise of a lifetime salary in exchange for collecting sensitive information. He ended up sentenced in 2019 to 19 years in prison. Among the documents he kept were references to operations and locations of US secret service personnel.
Chinese spies have also traditionally targeted the technological secrets of large American companies. One of the most notorious cases was that of Yanjun Xu, an MSS officer who tried to steal aircraft engine technology from General Electric, the historic industrial giant in the United States. Their method was to approach engineers and experts in the aeronautical industry, invite them to China on an all-expenses paid basis, and convince them to share confidential information.
In 2018, Xu traveled to Belgium to meet with an employee of GE Aviation, the aeronautical division of General Electric, without knowing that he was collaborating with the FBI. It was a trap. The Chinese agent was arrested, extradited to the United States and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The case uncovered how Beijing's secret services tried to obtain American aeronautical technology by recruiting specialists.
But Beijing's spies do not always need to organize trips or clandestine meetings to recruit informants. Social networks have become one of their great espionage grounds.
In 2023, the head of the British MI5 revealed that more than 20,000 people in the United Kingdom had received covert contacts from Chinese agents through platforms such as LinkedIn. More recently, the intelligence services of the Five Eyes alliance - the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - have warned about the use of LinkedIn to recruit informants. The procedure usually begins with an innocent job offer from a supposed consulting firm that commissions well-paid reports. Little by little, requests become more committed and payments increase in exchange for confidential information.
The Chinese Spy Channel
The great transformation of the MSS under Chen Yixin has occurred within China. Three years ago, the agency took an unusual step by opening its WeChat channel. Since then, Chinese spies have also become active propagandists, constantly publishing warnings, videos and alleged cases of foreign espionage.
The MSS encourages citizens to report any suspicious behavior, promises financial rewards to those who help uncover spies, and warns that threats can hide in the most everyday situations. Its message is clear: anyone can be a spy and anyone can help find it out.
