Report Links Network Tied to Alice Huang to $7.5 Billion in Nvidia Chip Shipments to China
Key Facts
A report published by The Information linked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang to the facilitation of at least $7.5 billion in chip shipments to Chinese companies since 2023, Reuters reported on November 10. The report was based on two people familiar with Alice Huang, so details of her role and the network’s scale remain attributed to its account. It said Alice Huang, her husband and her sister established a network of companies in China and Singapore to buy Nvidia chips. The report said the network helped move about 240,000 H100 and H200 processors, along with some A100 chips, to China. Destinations included AI companies and labs, according to the report, while these allegations alone do not establish that export rules were violated.
The report said orders for some Nvidia chips subject to U.S. export restrictions had stalled, and that Alice Huang used her ties to the company and its distributors to secure supplies. Among the companies named in the report was Shanghai Century Litong, a China-based company founded in June 2023. The company had obtained preferred cloud partner status with Nvidia by October, the report said. It said the status gave the company priority access to the company’s chips. The account places the company at the center of the alleged supply network, while its role and the details of the shipments remain part of the information conveyed in the report.
In a parallel development, Nvidia’s board announced on November 8 that it had begun an independent investigation into reports concerning Huang. The board said a committee of independent directors would oversee the investigation with the help of independent legal counsel. It said the investigation would examine available information, while the board saw no reason to believe national security or company secrets had been compromised. On November 10, the independent directors said they had retained John Kim, a former acting U.S. attorney, and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to lead the investigation. The FBI is also investigating the matter, Reuters reported, including the possibility that Huang was targeted in a foreign intelligence operation.
The case also reached the courts: individual investor Mark Kestenmacher filed a proposed class-action lawsuit in California against Nvidia and Huang, the Associated Press reported. The complaint accuses the company and its CEO of misleading investors and seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial. The lawsuit seeks to represent people who bought Nvidia shares between October 9 and November 8. These are allegations in a court complaint, not a ruling on the liability of the company or its CEO. Separately, the agency reported that the U.S. Commerce Department had been investigating suspicions involving Megaspeed, while Nvidia said its compliance team reviewed the matter and concluded that the company had committed no violation.
The case was accompanied by a sharp decline in the stock. Nvidia shares fell 4.3% in the November 9 session, erasing about $190 billion from its market value, the Associated Press reported. In trading on November 10, the stock fell more than 6% after the previous session’s decline, Reuters reported. The drop briefly allowed Microsoft to overtake Nvidia as the world’s second-largest company by market value, for the first time since June 2025. EL7 data showed the stock closed at $178.67 on November 9 and then at $166.90 on November 10. Bank of America analysts said the debate was whether the issue would remain a company matter or lead to restrictions and disruption in AI infrastructure, adding: "Allegations should not be equated with proven commercial harm."
Nvidia has offered context on how its CEO deals with customers, saying Huang meets thousands of customer executives each year. The company added that its cloud customers in Asia receive ordinary business information, not trade secrets or information related to U.S. national security. Reuters also reported that Alice Huang and Jensen Huang are not related. This information provides background on the alleged relationship and the nature of the communications, while the board examines the available information in its independent investigation. Attention is now focused on the outcome of the board’s review and government investigations, and on whether the case will develop into restrictions or disruption in the supply of AI chips, concerns raised by Bank of America analysts without treating the allegations as proven commercial harm.