Nvidia loses about $430 bn after China chip allegations

Nvidia lost about $430 billion in market value over two sessions, Channel NewsAsia reported Nov. 11, after allegations tied CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang to chip shipments to China.

The selloff puts governance and export-control risk at the center of the AI chipmaker’s investor story. Nvidia’s shares have fallen 9.5% since news of the affair broke, after being nearly flat this year, the report said.

The allegations widened on Tuesday, when reports said Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang helped facilitate at least $7.5 billion in Nvidia chip shipments to China. Channel NewsAsia also reported that independent directors at Nvidia hired outside counsel to investigate.

Republican US Senator Kevin Cramer, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, called for Huang to leave the top job. “The potential for extortion is so tremendous that something as sensitive as Nvidia chips, I just think he's got to go,” Cramer told Politico late on Tuesday.

Nvidia has said its board has no reason to believe US national security or company secrets were compromised. The company said Huang has committed to cooperating with the internal review, which is being led by Joon Kim, a Wachtell Lipton partner and former acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer demanded answers from President Donald Trump’s administration and called for tighter restrictions on US chip exports to China. “He's supposed to protect America, not China, not his friends,” Schumer said, accusing Trump of failing to address foreign espionage in the US technology industry.

The FBI is separately examining whether Huang, 63, was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation, according to the report. Huang has told employees he was unfaithful to his wife, without providing details of the relationship, while China’s foreign ministry has said the spy accusations are “groundless.”

Trump said on Monday he had spoken with Huang and asked whether he knew the woman was a spy. Trump said Huang told him he had “absolutely no idea,” and the president said he believed the Nvidia chief.

The New York Times reported that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed Trump in May aboard Air Force One about US intelligence indicating Huang was involved with a woman believed to be a Chinese spy. A White House official disputed the report and referred Reuters to Trump’s Monday comments.

The Southeast Asia link centers on Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based cloud-computing company described by Channel NewsAsia as an Nvidia customer. CNA said its checks found Megaspeed had limited operational presence in Singapore.

Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, became the controlling shareholder of Megaspeed, which was linked to Century Litong, a China-based company that secured preferred cloud partner status with Nvidia in 2023. The Information reported that Alice Huang, her husband and her sister built a network of companies across China and Singapore to acquire Nvidia chips.

The Information reported that about 240,000 H100, H200 and some A100 chips moved into China, with some ultimately serving Alibaba, Tencent and smaller Chinese AI labs. Reuters could not determine Alice Huang’s whereabouts to seek comment, and said it could not immediately verify a separate Axios report about a classified memo sent to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Source: news report, Channel NewsAsia, Nov. 11