Alice Huang, the woman US intelligence reportedly believes was gathering information for China, has been linked to a second company that helped move at least $7.5 billion of Nvidia chips into China since 2023. That is the central claim of a report by The Information, published at 10:41 UTC on 10 November, which names the company as Shanghai Century Litong.
According to the report, her relationship with Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang dates back to at least 2023. The publication says the rapport between them helped facilitate those chip sales, a figure far larger than previous estimates.
The figure is more than three times the roughly $2 billion of Nvidia processors that Megaspeed, the Singapore firm where Alice Huang was an executive, was first reported to have bought. The Information’s executive editor, Amir Efrati, wrote on X that her role at Megaspeed was “almost a distraction”. “The real story is her role at China-based Shanghai Century Litong,” he wrote, describing a company that became a “preferred” Nvidia cloud partner in mid-2023. He added that it had facilitated more than $7.5 billion in chip shipments, “incl securing BANNED chips”.
What The Information reports about Shanghai Century Litong
The full article sits behind The Information’s paywall, but outlets that have read it have described its main findings. According to Techzine, the report says Shanghai Century Litong was founded in June 2023 and became a preferred Nvidia cloud partner by that October, which gave it priority in chip allocations. One of its founding shareholders was reportedly linked to Alice Huang’s sister, and that shareholder stepped down in 2024. The report also says Alice Huang kept her own role vague and avoided leaving a paper trail.
The shipments are said to include about 240,000 chips, mostly H100 and H200 accelerators with a small number of A100s. Some of that hardware was subject to US export restrictions on China, according to the report. The A100 and H100 have been covered by US export controls on China since October 2022, which is why their route into the country matters. Century Litong reportedly leased computing power and ran data centres with the chips, serving Chinese technology companies and AI labs. The report also describes links between Century Litong, Megaspeed and a Malaysian subsidiary of Megaspeed.
None of this has been tested in public. Reuters said it tried to verify The Information’s report but could not, according to Techzine, and no charges have been reported against Alice Huang or any of the companies named. China’s foreign ministry has called the espionage claims “nothing but smears against China”, as we reported in our story on the congressional briefing. TalkEsport did not find a public response from Nvidia, Shanghai Century Litong or Megaspeed to the new report by Tuesday evening, UTC.
Why the Century Litong report raises the stakes for Nvidia
Until now, the scandal had centred on Jensen Huang’s private life and on Megaspeed, which US lawmakers and Commerce Department investigators had been examining for more than a year. Huang admitted to an affair in a letter to staff on 8 November, without naming the person involved, and Nvidia’s board opened an independent investigation the same day. The board has said it has “no reason to believe” that national security or Nvidia’s secrets were compromised. Our Megaspeed explainer sets out what was already known about the company.
The Information’s report moves the story from personal conduct to Nvidia’s sales channels. If its account is accurate, a Chinese company linked to a suspected intelligence asset became a preferred partner and secured priority access to Nvidia’s most sought-after chips. That is likely to sharpen the questions Huang faces when he briefs Congress. It will also strengthen the hand of lawmakers who have pushed for tighter export controls, such as Senator Tom Cotton, who urged an investigation into Megaspeed earlier this year.
The pressure on Huang is building from several directions at once. President Donald Trump has said the FBI is looking into the matter, as we covered in our report on his comments. The Information also published a profile on Tuesday of the 11 Nvidia directors who must decide whether Huang stays on as chief executive. Huang is due to present Nvidia’s third-quarter results on 17 November. The following day is set aside for the closed-door briefing that three House committee chairs, including the chair of the House Select Committee on the CCP, have asked him to attend.
