Alice Huang-linked firm got banned Nvidia chips: Bloomberg

Bloomberg News reported Friday that a Chinese company founded by Alice Huang obtained servers containing Nvidia H800 artificial intelligence chips, which the United States banned for export to China in 2023.

Bloomberg, citing an unnamed source and documents submitted to the Chinese government, said Aperia Cloud Services, an official Nvidia partner based in Singapore, bought servers containing the chips from Dell Technologies. The servers later ended up with Shanghai Longteng Intelligent Computing, the outlet reported.

Bloomberg said it was unclear how the hardware was obtained or whether Alice Huang was involved in the deal.

Alice Huang is alleged by Washington to have worked for Chinese intelligence. China denies that she is a spy. She is also known as a former top executive at Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based data centre company that has faced scrutiny over allegations of steering Nvidia chips to China.

Nvidia's former CEO Jensen Huang resigned Thursday after admitting to extramarital affairs, including one reportedly with Alice Huang. The scandal has raised concerns that high-end Nvidia chips may have reached China despite US export restrictions.

Megaspeed said Thursday it was investigating whether it had complied with export controls on sensitive microchips. Malaysia has said it is probing a Megaspeed subsidiary over the possible diversion of advanced AI chips to other countries.