Spies, Affairs and AI Chips: The Wendi Deng Saga and the Nvidia Probe Compared
A Sky News video showed Alice Huang with Nvidia CEO Jansen Huang. (Image video grab)
By SANJAY SINGH
Spies, affairs and AI chips: what the Wendi Deng saga and the Nvidia probe do and don’t have in common
New Delhi, November 10, 2026 — Washington has been here before, or thinks it has. When news broke that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had an affair with a woman US officials believe is a Chinese intelligence asset, commentators reached for an older name: Wendi Deng. The comparison is tempting and worth testing, because the two cases share a template but differ sharply in evidence.
Nvidia’s board said Sunday that independent directors, advised by outside counsel, would investigate. Huang told staff in an email he had been unfaithful. US intelligence agencies determined Alice Huang, no relation, whose company was buying Nvidia chips, was a Chinese spy and had a relationship with him.
A memo, per reports, circulated this year claimed China’s Ministry of State Security recruited her to spy on Huang. She was an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed. Nvidia told the Times the interactions were “not unusual” and that it does not share classified information with customers. China’s Foreign Ministry called the spy claim unsubstantiated.
The Wendi Deng precedent
In January 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that counterintelligence officials warned Jared Kushner in 2017 that Rupert Murdoch’s former wife might use her friendship with the Kushners to advance Chinese interests. ABC News confirmed Kushner had been warned.
Officials were reportedly concerned about her lobbying for a $100 million Chinese-funded garden at Washington’s National Arboretum that was blocked over surveillance fears. Deng’s spokesperson said she knew of no such concerns or any such project.
Trump said the warning came during a routine briefing, per Fortune. The Journal reported officials did not accuse anyone of wrongdoing, and the Washington Examiner noted author Michael Wolff said Murdoch himself had told people for years that Deng was a spy. She has never been charged.
Evidence: The Deng story rested on a warning with no public accusation and a contested source. The Huang story rests on an intelligence memo that policymakers reportedly received last spring, according to CNBC.
Money and policy: Megaspeed has been investigated over whether it helped Chinese firms sidestep export controls. A Commerce Department inquiry found no evidence of violations, but the Justice Department took over a Commerce probe and is pursuing a criminal investigation of Megaspeed, per SF Standard.
The Deng saga showed how easily the spy story can outrun the facts. The Nvidia case has more documents behind it, but the same lesson holds: until investigators say what Huang knew and what was passed on, the verdict belongs to the evidence.
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