How China Stays Right on Our Heels in the AI Race

If you've followed the AI race between the U.S. and China, you already know that China is always following the lead of the American companies that are creating the future, but it's also a bit of a marvel just how close the Chinese are. They should be years behind us but somehow they are always only about six months behind. 

There are sanctions in place that prevent ASML from selling China their most advanced EUV chipmakers. China has to get along with the older, less advanced models. Similarly, there are limits on the number and type of GPUs that Nvidia can sell to China. Since most AI data centers run on those Nvidia chips, not having the latest (or an unlimited number) should really limit China's growth in this area, but it never seems to matter. They continue to nip at our heels.

Last year, the NY Times reported that there was suspicion at the Commerce Department that a relatively unknown CEO at a company in Singapore was helping divert Nvidia chips to China.

On a humid June night last year, Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, held court with several of his company’s major Asian customers at a bar with sweeping views of Taipei. They stood and toasted the booming artificial intelligence industry.

Next to the Nvidia chief was a woman named Huang Le, or Alice Huang, an executive of a Singapore-based data center company called Megaspeed, which was poised to buy $2 billion of Nvidia A.I. technology over the next year...

Commerce Department officials have been investigating whether Megaspeed, which has close ties to Chinese tech firms, is helping companies in China sidestep American export restrictions...

She was mingling with a crowd of tech executives just after midnight at the Taipei bar in early June of last year when she offered to ask Mr. Huang of Nvidia to join them, recalled Parker Schmitt, an executive who was with the group.

“She said, ‘I bet you guys I can get Jensen here,’ and then Jensen immediately showed up,” Mr. Schmitt said, referring to Mr. Huang by his first name...

Ms. Huang has a scant online profile. She spent much of her career in mainland China, including working as a television reporter for Chinese state media and as a private banker, according to a biography found on the social media of a former employer. The Times could not confirm either of those experiences. Ms. Huang left Megaspeed in recent months. The exact date is unclear. It is also unclear why she left and what she is doing now.

Again, this report is from last October. The New York Times was careful not to make any allegations but you can sort of see the hints they are dropping about Alice Huang. They also had pictures showing that she's an attractive woman.

Is Huang Xiaole (黄小乐) aka Alice Huang a 燕子 working for the CCP? https://t.co/oplTpGYGDA

— Byron Wan (@Byron_Wan) October 10, 2025

And that brings us to today and a follow up report that suggests Alice Huang probably is a Chinese spy.

A top executive at a Singapore-based data center company was under scrutiny for possibly steering advanced Nvidia A.I. chips to China. And now American officials had concluded that she was a Chinese intelligence asset, funneling information to Beijing.

But what came next was even more alarming. 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 chief executive...

Roughly a year ago, Mr. Trump was briefed about the intelligence findings, which have not been previously reported, and chose not to do anything with the information.

Apparently, no one ever spoke to Jensen Huang to let him know. He never got the "defensive briefing" that Eric Swalwell got about Fang Fang. The report suggests President Trump didn't want to rock the boat when the U.S. needed so many of Nvidia's chips. Also, there's another possible reason Jensen Huang was never told.

It is unclear whether concerns about protecting the surveillance played a role in the decision not to inform Mr. Huang. Telling him could have alerted Ms. Huang that she was being watched, which is a common reason intelligence officials hesitate to give defensive briefings.

That tracks to some degree, because according to today's story Ms. Huang is still being watched closely by the U.S. However, she's no longer the CEO of Megaspeed. She seems to have drifted away from the company right at the moment when both the U.S. government, Singaporean authorities and the NY Times were asking questions about her activities. She seems to have suddenly disappeared from view. Not suspicious at all.

As for the billions in chips bought by Megaspeed, they wound up in data centers used by big Chinese tech companies.

Megaspeed is essentially a middle man. It has bought Nvidia chips from the American arm of Inspur, a Chinese server maker...

Megaspeed has then provided that computing power to Alibaba and other Chinese companies. U.S. officials believe the firm is one piece of a sprawling international effort by Chinese companies to access the chips needed to build and run A.I. Investigators suspect that some Nvidia chips acquired by Megaspeed are also finding their way illegally into China.

Megaspeed’s sister company in Malaysia bought at least $4.8 billion worth of advanced A.I. equipment containing Nvidia chips and technology between June 2024 and February 2026, according to trade records obtained from ImportGenius, a trade platform. It was an exceptional amount of money for a small, obscure company.

How does China stay on our heels in the AI race? They cheat. And Nvidia doesn't seem to care because sales are sales. As long as it's not technically illegal, they aren't going to say or do anything about it. Megaspeed is still buying Nvidia's chips this year and is opening a massive new data center with them in Malaysia.

Editor's Note: Do you enjoy HotAir's conservative reporting that takes on the radical Left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.

Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.