Billionaire Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has admitted to having an affair with a woman suspected of being a spy feeding information to Beijing.

The 63-year-old, currently ranked as the eighth richest man in the world by Forbes, has apologised for being unfaithful to his wife and said he takes “full responsibility” for his actions.

Nvidia is reported to have sold nearly $5bn in AI chips to Megaspeed, the Singapore-based computing company where his lover Alice Huang previously worked as managing director.

The board of his AI chipmaking company has now opened an independent investigation into reports Huang has “been the target of a foreign intelligence effort”.

It comes amid the ongoing rivalry between China and the US as they remain locked in a race for AI development.

Below, The Independent looks at the key players in the still-developing scandal.

Who is suspected spy Alice Huang?

US intelligence officials believe Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, to be a spy working for the Chinese government.

Huang, who is no relation to the Nvidia CEO despite having the same name, is a former executive at the Singapore-based data centre and cloud computing firm, Megaspeed International.

It is unclear when the pair’s affair began but pictures of the two at a Taipei bar in 2024 have since been published in the New York Post.

The New York Times reports that it was around this time that Megaspeed began a multibillion-dollar purchase of advanced AI microchips, which to many in the industry appeared to come out of nowhere.

The pair was also seen leaving a Taipei restaurant in May 2025. In livestreams during this period, she can be seen wearing a pink dress and apparently kissing him on the cheek.

According to AFP, online searches reveal Huang’s previous jobs include working at HSBC and as a journalist at Chinese media outlets CCTV and Hunan TV. However, the news agency notes it is unable to verify the information displayed.

The New York Times reported that a memo circulating among top policymakers last year cited intelligence that a Chinese businesswoman affiliated with Huang was a spy for China’s ministry of state security.

The outlet said that Huang speaks good English and has connections at the highest levels of the AI industry. Megaspeed is reportedly building data centres in Southeast Asia and then renting this computing power to Chinese internet firm Alibaba, which is akin to the country’s Amazon.

According to the Times, this has allowed China to purchase advanced Nvidia chips, whose sale to China is otherwise limited by the United States.

Nvidia said they had not been informed by US officials of the risk of Alice Huang being a spy. China, meanwhile, has strongly denied the claims of a spy plot.

Liu Chang, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington told the New York Times that the claims were a campaign of “groundless smears and slanders” against Beijing.

British shadow foreign secretary Tom Tugendhat said it is possible the Chinese state could have recruited Huang after the affair had already commenced.

He speculated it would not be beyond the country’s government to “threaten sending Huang’s family to prison were she not to co-operate, now she was in a position to do so.”

What we know about the CEO’s wife Lori Huang

Huang met his wife Lori Mills, 65, at Oregon State University where the pair studied electrical engineering. In the early 1980s, they were lab partners and grew closer over time before marrying in 1985.

Lori won him over with her offer to study together every Sunday along with a promise that he would be a CEO by the age of 30, the billionaire said in a previous interview.

Huang co-founded Nvidia around eight years later. His wife has kept a low-profile but occasionally attends public events with her husband.

The couple founded the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation in 2007, whose assets are estimated to be worth more than $9bn due to the surging value of Nvidia shares.

Stephen Witt, the author of a biography on Jensen Huang, Thinking Machine, told the BBC that “for someone who has gone to such great lengths to cultivate an image of being a family guy and who keeps his children very close, it is very bad.”

“He praises his wife, he talks about her in very glowing ways,” he said. “Both of his children work for Nvidia – Spencer and Maddison.”

Jensen Huang, the Silicon Valley superstar

The leather-jacketed billionaire is known for adopting a rockstar persona, spending time with fans and signing autographs for supporters.

He has saved his company from bankruptcy multiple times with the belief that AI would one day become essential in the market. It now provides computing systems to several companies powering video games and AI models such as ChatGPT.

US president Donald Trump has referred to him as an “honourable guy” and described the situation as “complex”.

Huang was one of a small group of people along with Tesla billionaire Elon Musk who attended a state dinner when Chinese president Xi Jinping visited Washington earlier this year. His company is now estimated to be worth around $4.5 trillion.