Megaspeed arranged nearly $12 billion worth of Nvidia high-performance chip orders for Chinese companies between March 2024 and June 2025, according to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. The company is owned by Alice Huang, the former lover of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Megaspeed shipped the chips to buyers in China who maintained long-standing business ties with local tech giants. The orders covered several hundred thousand chips that the US had sought to keep out of China through export controls. Megaspeed reportedly gained preferential access to scarce AI chips as an Nvidia cloud partner, apparently because it counted Chinese cloud and tech company Alibaba as a major client.
This situation highlights how export restrictions face practical challenges when indirect commercial relationships exist. Nvidia officially reported $12.4 billion in China revenue over six months, accounting for 7 percent of total revenue. Short-selling firm Culper Research estimates, however, that more than 20 percent of Nvidia’s revenue in the last fiscal year came from Chinese customers. A significant share of that China business may have flowed through indirect channels. This discrepancy suggests official figures might not capture the full scope of commercial activity involving restricted hardware.
* Alice Huang owns Megaspeed, which facilitated the sales.
* The shipments included chips banned under US export controls.
* Nvidia’s official China revenue figure differs from independent estimates.
