Who Let the Chips Through?

After Jensen Huang's exit, the Nvidia investigation comes down to two sets of records. One can show where the chips went. The other can show what Washington did when it was warned.

In October, a U.S.-blacklisted Chinese university with deep ties to the People's Liberation Army bought two Nvidia H200 chips. Reuters found the purchase in Chinese procurement records. The university bought through local suppliers. Meanwhile, Malaysia said Friday it was checking whether chips imported by Speedmatrix, the local unit of Singapore-based Megaspeed, were re-exported. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said there was no indication so far that the chips in that case had left Malaysia. The university purchase gives investigators a buyer to trace backward from. The Speedmatrix inquiry gives them a shipment trail to follow forward. The public record has yet to connect them.

Megaspeed is the company that brings Jensen Huang into the picture. Alice Huang, who formerly ran it, is the woman The New York Times identified in reporting on an alleged foreign intelligence operation targeting the Nvidia founder. Jensen Huang admitted infidelity on November 8. Nvidia's board announced his resignation on Thursday, November 12. Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed that the FBI was investigating and said Thursday that DOJ had reached no conclusion about whether Alice Huang was a spy. The chip trail can be investigated while that question remains open.

A warehouse full of servers only answers the first question

Singapore says its police and customs authorities opened their own inquiry in February 2025 and traced servers through Singapore into Malaysia. They wanted to know whether the equipment then moved again. In July 2025, Singapore asked U.S. officials for help obtaining information from Supermicro, an American server supplier. Singapore says it followed up repeatedly and received limited information or assistance. That matters because the company that assembles and ships a server can have records the country inspecting it needs to reconstruct where it went.

Bloomberg reported a more specific discrepancy. Nvidia's initial inventory accounting to U.S. authorities came up roughly 50,000 chips short of what Bloomberg found in trade records. Nvidia later told Bloomberg it had checked additional warehouses and found the missing hardware, without publicly giving a count for those sites. Megaspeed says it cooperated with U.S. inspections. An inventory discrepancy is a lead. What would resolve it is a reconciliation showing which server and accelerator serial numbers appeared on the original shipments, which ones inspectors actually saw, and which moved later.

There's also a second way to get access. A Chinese company can rent computing time on a server that stays in Southeast Asia. To trace that, investigators would need customer contracts, billing, and logs showing who used the machines. The House passed the Remote Access Security Act 369–22 in January, months before the Times published its report on alleged intelligence targeting. The bill would give Commerce authority to regulate certain remote access. Whichever route investigators suspect, they need evidence that follows the hardware or the customer beyond the first inspection.

On Friday, Reuters identified $3.2 billion in Chinese computing projects and equipment agreements built around restricted Nvidia processors. Its tally includes proposed projects, signed contracts, and completed installations, with costs such as buildings and power systems included. A proposed $873 million computing center in Fujian specified H100 chips while seeking commercial partners. A project plan shows what a buyer wants. An invoice, delivery record, or on-site check can show what it got.

Which decision did the warning reach?

The Times reported that Commerce's Megaspeed inquiry moved to DOJ after Nvidia general counsel Tim Teter contacted Commerce investigators. Nvidia said Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler had authorized the contact. The sequence raises a specific question. Did the transfer preserve the investigation and its ability to act, or did it interrupt work that could have stopped shipments? A referral date, case notes, and any decision to pause an inspection or enforcement action would tell Congress more than another round of guesses about motives.

The licensing timeline needs the same care. In January, Commerce moved H200-class exports to China and Macau to case-by-case review. Some licenses came before the May trip to Beijing. Axios reported that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was sent a classified warning. The Times reported that Marco Rubio briefed Trump aboard Air Force One before Jensen Huang joined the delegation in Alaska. The White House disputed the account. On May 14, Reuters reported that roughly ten Chinese firms had been cleared and that deliveries had yet to begin at the time of its reporting. Each application has its own date, recipient, conditions, and approval record. That's where investigators can test whether a specific warning reached the people making a specific decision.

The politics are already here

Jesse Watters floated the theory that Democrats used the midterm results to spring the story and seize control of AI policy. The first Times report about the suspected intelligence operation ran October 29, before the November 3 election. Watters was on firmer ground pointing to Anthropic's political spending. FEC-derived records show its PAC gave $2,500 each to Democrat Chris Coons and Republican Brian Mast, who is leading a House inquiry. Coons publicly opposed easing Nvidia chip restrictions a year before the donation. There's plenty of lobbying to scrutinize. The available records don't establish who leaked intelligence or who influenced Nvidia's board.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons asked the administration to confirm by November 17 that it had issued record-preservation directives. Republican House chairs have asked Huang and Teter for closed-door interviews on December 1 and 2, respectively, and Kessler to testify on December 3. The useful thing about calling them separately is that their accounts can be checked against the same records.

Start with the two H200s. Ask who sold them to the university, who sold them to that supplier, and which records verify each handoff. Then ask which of those records Commerce had in time to act. If investigators can answer both questions for two chips, they have a way to test the bigger claims. If they can't, Washington has a problem that will outlast Jensen Huang.

Sources

• Reuters: “Exclusive: PLA-linked Chinese university bought Nvidia H200 chips despite US blacklist” (via Hindustan Times)

• Reuters, on Malaysia’s inquiry into whether Speedmatrix chips were re-exported (via New Straits Times)

• Anadolu Agency: “No indication chips reexported from Malaysia, says Premier Anwar”

• BBC News: “Nvidia launches investigation into CEO’s affair with suspected Chinese spy”

• Nvidia: “NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition”

• The New York Times: “China’s Top Spy Agency Recruited Woman Who Targeted Jensen Huang”

• Anadolu Agency: “US Justice Department has yet to determine whether Alice Huang is a Chinese spy”

• The Straits Times, on Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs account of the Megaspeed probe

• The Register, on Singapore’s requests to US authorities and Supermicro

• Bloomberg: “Nvidia Intervened in US Probe of Megaspeed Chip Smuggling” (via The Business Times)

• Bloomberg, on the roughly 50,000-chip inventory discrepancy (via India Today)

• The Register: “Congress votes to close China cloud chip export loophole”

• EENews Europe, on the Remote Access Security Act

• Reuters, on $3.2 billion of Chinese AI projects built around restricted Nvidia chips (summarized by Unite.AI)

• Reuters, on the Senate Banking Committee and three House committees’ testimony requests

• Raw Story, on the Axios report that Lutnick received a classified warning

• The New York Times: “Despite Denial, Trump Was Told on Trip to China About Spying on Nvidia Leader”

• Reuters, on the May approvals for roughly ten Chinese firms (via TradingView)

• Baker McKenzie, on BIS’s January 15, 2026 license review policy revision

• New York Post: “Commerce Dept’s Lutnick, Kessler under fire over inaction on Nvidia’s Megaspeed ‘spy’ fiasco”

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Rich Washburn is a technologist, strategist, and Founder & Chief AI Architect of ARIA AI Labs, working at the intersection of AI, infrastructure, communications, and capital. He also serves as Managing Partner and Chief AI Officer at Eliakim Capital.