US spy agencies had gathered striking intelligence.
asserted
agencies → gather → intelligence
A top executive at a Singapore-based data centre company was under scrutiny for possibly steering advanced Nvidia artificial intelligence chips to China.
uncertain
executive → base → China
And now US officials had concluded that she was a Chinese intelligence asset, funnelling information to Beijing.
asserted
she → conclude → Beijing
But what came next was even more alarming.
asserted
came → come → ?
Surveillance of the executive, Alice Huang or Huang Le, a Chinese citizen, revealed that she had developed a close relationship with Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO.
asserted
she → reveal → Huang
For years, Washington has worked to deny China the technology needed to match or surpass the United States in the intense global competition for superiority in AI.
asserted
Washington → work → AI
The discovery that Beijing was getting reports from someone with direct access to Jensen Huang, one of the most powerful figures in the AI revolution as well as an influential ally of President Donald Trump, set off alarms at the White House.
asserted
Beijing → get → House
Roughly a year ago, Trump was briefed about the intelligence findings, which have not been previously reported, and chose not to do anything with the information.
asserted
which → brief → information
Trump has been wary of disrupting Nvidia’s chip sales, which are helping to drive the economy and the stock market, and of further complicating the trading relationship with China.
asserted
which → disrupt → China
This account is based on interviews with people briefed on the surveillance, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the findings are drawn from classified intelligence, as well as other officials and industry executives and analysts.
asserted
findings → base → intelligence
US officials already suspected that Alice Huang was helping China evade constraints on its ability to gain access to advanced AI chips.
asserted
China → suspect → chips
But the revelation that she was feeding information directly to Beijing raised more troubling possibilities, including that Jensen Huang had insights into Trump’s thinking on an issue of vital importance to both nations, one likely to come up when the president visits China next month.
asserted
president → feed → China
And it left questions about whether she could be gleaning information about Nvidia, which as much as any company accounts for the lead the United States has maintained in developing cutting-edge AI models.
uncertain
States → leave → models
Jensen Huang has not received a defensive briefing, warnings sometimes given to Americans who are being targeted by foreign intelligence services, people briefed on the surveillance said.
asserted
people → receive → surveillance
The surveillance of Alice Huang continues, they said, and companies that have been affiliated with her continued this year to purchase Nvidia chips.
asserted
that → continue → chips
Nvidia said the company that employed her, Megaspeed, was like any other regional customer and that it had previously investigated and debunked claims the Singaporean company was smuggling chips to China.
uncertain
company → say → China
John Rizzo, a spokesperson for Nvidia, said: “Jensen’s interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected.
asserted
interactions → say → Huang
Meetings with customers are part of a CEO’s job; Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year.”
asserted
Jensen → talk → executives
Nvidia is “confident that if the US government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know,” Rizzo said.
asserted
Rizzo → believe → industry
Customers like Megaspeed, he added, “receive ordinary business information — not sensitive Nvidia trade secrets — and zero information relevant to national security.”
asserted
he → add → security
The White House, the CIA and the National Security Agency all declined to comment.
asserted
House → decline → ?
In a statement to The New York Times, Megaspeed said its “current leadership” takes the matter “extremely seriously and is committed to getting to the facts behind these allegations.”
asserted
leadership → say → allegations
It added that “outside counsel has been retained to conduct a thorough internal investigation and has notified the US government that we are fully committed to cooperating.”
asserted
we → add → government
Alice Huang did not respond to requests for comment.
asserted
Huang → respond → comment
It is not clear how closely she is still connected to Megaspeed.
asserted
she → connect → Megaspeed
A person familiar with Megaspeed’s operations said she had become less active in the company in the wake of the US investigations.
asserted
she → say → investigations
Asked about the American conclusion that Alice Huang has been collecting intelligence on behalf of Beijing, Liu Chang, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said the United States was pursuing a campaign of “groundless smears and slanders” against China.
asserted
States → ask → China
When Trump was initially briefed on the intelligence last year, US officials did not believe the Nvidia executive knew that Alice Huang was gathering information for the Chinese.
asserted
Huang → brief → Chinese
It is unclear whether intelligence officials have since updated their assessment, but some senior officials inside the Trump administration doubt that Jensen Huang could have remained unaware of what they had concluded was her intelligence-gathering role for China.
uncertain
they → update → China
Questions about whether Megaspeed was providing AI chips to China became public through articles published last year by the Times and Bloomberg News.
Jensen Huang has successfully lobbied the administration during Trump’s second term to loosen regulations on AI companies and roll back tighter restrictions on the sales of Nvidia’s chips to China.
asserted
Huang → provide → China
He also negotiated a deal with Trump that allowed the US government to take a 25 per cent stake of certain Nvidia chips that the government allows to be sold to China.
asserted
government → negotiate → China
The close relationship between the president and Jensen Huang has impeded efforts to clamp down on Nvidia’s chip sales abroad, current and former US officials said.
asserted
officials → impede → sales
They described some investigations and proposed trade sanctions involving China or Nvidia as having ground to a halt within the Commerce Department, the agency in charge of regulating chip exports.
asserted
They → describe → exports
Nvidia has said that it complies with the law and that there is no evidence of its chips being smuggled to China.
asserted
chips → say → China
Rizzo said China’s government has “blocked US AI chips, protecting its own industry.”
asserted
government → say → industry
Many questions about the situation remain unanswered, at least publicly.
It is unclear whether concerns about protecting the surveillance played a role in the decision not to inform Jensen Huang.
uncertain
concerns → remain → Huang
Telling him could have alerted Alice Huang that she was being watched, which is a common reason intelligence officials hesitate to give defensive briefings.
uncertain
officials → tell → briefings
It could not be determined which intelligence agency or agencies have been involved in monitoring Alice Huang, or what prompted them to start.
uncertain
what → determine → them
It is also not clear under what circumstances she began gathering information for Beijing, what information she passed along or its value to China.
asserted
she → begin → China
The previous reporting about Alice Huang by the Times described her meteoric and somewhat mysterious rise.
asserted
reporting → describe → rise
…and 57 more, not listed.
The Aporia
