The suspected Chinese spy at the heart of a scandal that threatens to take down Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has returned to her home country, people familiar with the matter said.
Megaspeed International founder Alice Huang is living in Beijing with the knowledge of security officials, one of the people said, asking to remain anonymous while discussing a sensitive situation.
It was not immediately clear when or why she travelled to the capital, nor what she may be engaged in, the people said.
Alice Huang’s whereabouts have been the topic of intense speculation since Nvidia’s founder admitted to an extramarital affair and the company’s board began an investigation into allegations she is a Chinese spy.
Known also as Huang Le, the former journalist, who became a power broker renting advanced chips to the nation’s top firms, was the catalyst for a controversy that roiled markets and may now result in Jensen Huang’s ouster.
Beijing has denied that the woman was a spy. China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Alice Huang came into the CEO’s orbit after founding Megaspeed, the largest buyer of Nvidia’s chips in South-east Asia – a major route for smuggling the firm’s advanced hardware into China.
