The trillion-dollar question at the heart of the Nvidia scandal is who Alice Huang was really working for. With Beijing denying that the 42-year-old was a spy seeking to create a back door for Nvidia chips to be sold to Chinese companies, fresh questions have emerged following revelations that Huang held stakes in, and had business ties to, companies working for Huawei, Nvidia’s biggest competitor.

For Jensen Huang, who has just stepped down as Nvidia’s chief executive, the blows keep coming. Within hours, the founder of the technology giant resigned under pressure from the scandal, agreed to testify before Congress and faced revelations of a third extramarital affair, this time with a company executive. As if that were not enough, it has now emerged that the woman whose involvement brought Jensen Huang crashing down had, through her companies, a stake in a data centre that sold computing power to Huawei, Nvidia’s biggest rival in China.

The connection was identified by private intelligence firm Tesari and revealed in a CNBC investigation. The trail has three stages: Since 2016, Alice Huang had been a co-owner of Shanghai Hexi, an investment firm with interests in technology and data centres. In 2021, Hexi acquired a 27% stake in Shanghai Century Longteng, which it retained until 2024. Longteng holds a controlling 50.1% stake in the Shenzhen Yifeng Technology data centre, whose principal customer was Huawei Cloud. Hexi had also guaranteed the loans used to finance the facility.

The relationship did not end when Hexi withdrew. Alice Huang’s husband, Kang Wei, who founded Hexi, became an executive at Longteng in 2022. He was also present at the signing of the agreement with Huawei.

The timing is crucial. According to the documents, Huang’s businesses were linked to the provision of Nvidia computing power to Huawei around December 2023. That was when she first appeared publicly alongside Jensen Huang. Tesari analysts suspect the corporate structure was designed to conceal the relationship. However, the investigation found no evidence that Nvidia chips had been illegally transferred to Huawei.

The other end of the trail leads to Singapore-based Megaspeed. The company rents out computing power from Nvidia processors, and Alice Huang served as its chief executive from March to November 2023. It has since become one of the largest buyers of Nvidia chips in Asia, with purchases estimated by analysts at more than $4 billion. The question is whether its wider network is connected to $7.5 billion worth of chip sales to China.

Huawei has been in Washington’s sights for more than a decade. In 2012, a congressional report described the company as a “national security threat”. In December 2018, Canadian authorities arrested its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, in Vancouver at the request of the United States, over allegations that she had deceived banks to circumvent sanctions against Iran. Shortly afterwards, the company itself was also accused of stealing trade secrets. Meng returned to China in 2021 following an agreement with US authorities.

The major restrictions came in May 2019, when the first Trump administration placed Huawei on the Commerce Department’s blacklist. Since then, American companies have needed special licences to sell technology to it. In 2020, the restrictions were extended to any chips manufactured using American technology. Huawei consequently lost access to TSMC, and its position in the international smartphone market collapsed. In 2022, the Federal Communications Commission banned the approval of new Huawei telecommunications equipment in the United States.

The company has consistently denied conducting espionage, and its isolation has not brought it to its knees. It developed its own artificial intelligence processors, the Ascend series, and became Nvidia’s main competitor in China. Jensen Huang himself described Huawei last year as “one of the most formidable technology companies in the world”.

So far, however, there is no proof that Nvidia chips reached Huawei illegally. Nor has it been established that Jensen Huang knew who Alice Huang really was. According to Trump, Huang told him he “had no idea”. When it will become clear whether the woman who brought down the king of chips was working for herself, for Megaspeed or for Beijing may depend on what Huang says behind closed doors on Capitol Hill.

The blows keep coming

Meanwhile, the blows to Huang continued in rapid succession. Nvidia’s board accepted Huang’s resignation on Wednesday and announced it on Thursday. After 33 years at the helm, Huang is stepping down as president, chief executive and a member of the board of directors. Chief financial officer Colette Kress is taking over as interim CEO, while Harvey Jones becomes the company’s first-ever chairman of the board. The announcement made no reference to the scandal.

Hours later, Reuters revealed, citing two sources, that Huang had also been involved in an extramarital affair with another Nvidia employee, whose name was not disclosed. The revelation followed reports concerning Alice Huang and Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice-president of healthcare, who reported directly to Huang.

Shortly afterwards, facing the threat of a subpoena, Huang agreed to testify behind closed doors by Thanksgiving Day on 26 November. He will appear before the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees and the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. According to House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Brian Mast, Huang “has very serious questions to answer”. In the Senate, Tim Scott called for both Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to testify.

As these and numerous other revelations emerged, Nvidia shares plunged by as much as 14% during the trading session. They eventually closed at $166.19, down 4.3%, leaving the company’s market capitalisation just above $4 trillion. Bernstein halved its price target to $200, while the first shareholder class-action lawsuit has already been filed. The next test comes on 17 November, when the company reports its quarterly results.

The White House faces awkward questions

US President Donald Trump described the affair as “horrible” and “sad”. However, he said it remained unclear whether Alice Huang was a spy and suggested Apple’s Tim Cook as a replacement for Huang. He also expressed “complete confidence” in Lutnick, who is himself coming under scrutiny.

According to Axios, on 5 November Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asked Lutnick in the Situation Room why Megaspeed had not yet been placed on the blacklist. The Commerce Department denies that such a conversation took place. The New York Times, however, revealed that a departmental investigation into Megaspeed was abruptly halted following intervention by Nvidia. Lawmakers from both parties are calling for Lutnick to appear before Congress. Investigations are expected to intensify from January, when Democrats take control of Congress.

Beijing continues to insist that the espionage allegations are “baseless speculation”. In Washington, however, the FBI had briefed lawmakers on its suspicions almost a year ago.