US lawmakers are moving to tighten controls on AI chip exports after a Wall Street Journal report on Megaspeed, the Singapore-based Nvidia partner at the centre of the Jensen Huang scandal. The company arranged nearly $12 billion worth of advanced chips for Chinese companies, the Journal said.
According to records reviewed by the Journal, the arrangements ran from March 2024 to June 2025, and they have raised fears that US export rules were broken or sidestepped. House Speaker Mike Johnson said there is “a developing consensus in Congress” on limiting chip exports to China, Reuters reported. Megaspeed has denied diverting Nvidia chips to China, and Nvidia has said it complies with US law.
Megaspeed’s former chief executive, Alice Huang, is the businesswoman whose relationship with Huang preceded his resignation from Nvidia on 12 November. Reuters reported on Saturday that Huang told Nvidia’s general counsel that his dealings with her and Megaspeed were standard business. The bills now gaining support in Washington, however, go well beyond one company or one executive. Together, they would change how the US polices where its most advanced chips end up and who can use them.
Chinese demand was served from data centres in Southeast Asia, the Journal reports
The Journal’s figures point to a model that current rules struggle to reach. Megaspeed bought at least $4.8 billion of AI equipment in under two years and installed it in Southeast Asian facilities, mostly in Malaysia, then rented out the computing power remotely, according to the records it reviewed. The newspaper described that structure as legal on its face. US export rules restrict shipping advanced chips to China, but they have not stopped Chinese companies from renting the same chips in data centres abroad.
Separate reporting points to physical diversion as well. A Chinese company linked to Megaspeed put smuggled Nvidia hardware into service at a Shanghai data centre, according to documents reported by Bloomberg. The equipment was worth about 485 million yuan (around $73 million) and included 52 Super Micro servers fitted with H100 or H200 processors. Both chips are barred from sale to China, although TalkEsport has not seen the documents.
Megaspeed has rejected the claims that it rerouted chips. In a statement dated 12 November, chairman and chief executive Tan Yong Pong said the company had cooperated with inspections by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. He added that Megaspeed had hired a US law firm to count its GPUs and check its compliance. Senator Tom Cotton had already urged the Commerce Secretary to investigate Megaspeed for skirting export laws.
Four bills would track chips, close the cloud gap and give Congress a veto-style say
Reuters identified four measures in the package now before Congress. The AI Overwatch Act would give Congress more power over exports of advanced AI chips, while the Chip Security Act would require companies to track where those processors are located, to curb smuggling. The Match Act would press US allies to restrict sales and servicing of chipmaking equipment bound for China. The Remote Access Security Act would give the Commerce Department tools to stop Chinese firms renting overseas data centres to reach Nvidia chips, which is the gap the Megaspeed model exposes.
Republicans want to attach new chip restrictions to the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual defence bill that must pass each year, according to a Senate aide quoted by Reuters. Congressional staff have also discussed a date and location for Huang to testify, and he is expected to appear before Thanksgiving. OpenAI has told lawmakers it supports the package, as TalkEsport reported when it examined claims that the AI labs engineered Huang’s exit.
Nvidia has beaten similar efforts in Congress before. In December 2025, Congress dropped a proposal to curb chip exports from the defence bill, in what Bloomberg described as a lobbying win for the company. Huang argued for years that selling to China keeps the country dependent on American technology, and that cutting it off hands the market to domestic rivals such as Huawei. The White House has largely sided with that view on chip sales.
Singapore’s case against Alice Huang has added weight to the push
Singapore’s own investigation has fed the pressure in Washington. Authorities held Alice Huang’s passport for months while they investigated server purchases, and in February the country barred her from re-entering after police concluded she had given them inaccurate information. The Ministry of Home Affairs said she was not investigated for espionage. US authorities have examined whether she gathered information for China, which Beijing denies, and no charges against her have been reported.
For Nvidia, the timing could hardly be more awkward. The company reports third-quarter results on 17 November, its first under interim chief executive Colette Kress, while its independent directors run a separate investigation into Huang’s conduct. Data centre sales made up the large majority of Nvidia’s revenue in its last reported quarter, which is why any new limit on who can buy or rent its chips matters to investors.
