Alice Huang-linked firm procured banned Nvidia chips in China. Jensen Huang’s last hours as CEO
A Chinese company founded by Alice Huang, the woman at the center of a controversy dogging Nvidia Corp., procured smuggled AI chips that were installed at a Shanghai data center with links to Megaspeed International Pte, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News.
Some of the servers were originally sold to Aperia Cloud Services, an official Nvidia Cloud Partner headquartered in Singapore, according to a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
But instead of staying in the island nation, the documents show, the hardware wound up in the hands of a Chinese company Alice founded, at a sprawling AI facility in Shanghai. That project has several ties to Alice, including that Megaspeed — which she founded in 2023 — used a rendering of the data center in a 2024 investor presentation.
The documents offer the most explicit evidence yet that an expansive network of Chinese companies with Alice at the center managed to get its hands on smuggled Nvidia hardware — indeed, via an NCP separate from Megaspeed, which is itself also suspected of semiconductor diversion. [Continue reading…]
At the end, Jensen Huang looked broken and shattered, his legendary energy depleted. After weeks spent denying the allegations of infidelity and fighting to remain in his job as Nvidia Corp.’s chief executive officer, his surrender late Wednesday night was unconditional. Huang’s usual take-charge demeanor had evaporated, according to a person familiar with the situation, and he’d started using phrases like “whatever” and “I don’t care.”
For the decades he spent building Nvidia into a multitrillion-dollar AI chip behemoth, Huang was famous for his attention to the tiniest of details, from chip architecture to the compensation packages of even the most junior employees at the company. Now, in the eyes of the people in the room, he had given up.
It was a stunningly quick fall for a billionaire and tech titan who two weeks ago was the face of artificial intelligence around the world. With his directness and vigor, he had charmed US President Donald Trump, shaped global tech policy and drawn adoring crowds on his papal-style international tours. [Continue reading…]