Office lights always off, phone rings to a home

Scale and track record unclear despite

$4.6 billion deal with Nvidia

Questions are mounting over whether Megaspeed, a Singapore-based data center company run by Alice Huang — reported to be Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's extramarital partner — is a shell company with no real operations. [Taiwan NowNews]
Questions are mounting over whether Megaspeed, a Singapore-based data center company run by Alice Huang — reported to be Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's extramarital partner — is a shell company with no real operations. [Taiwan NowNews]

Mounting questions surround the true nature of Megaspeed, a Singapore data center company run by Alice Huang — known in Chinese as Huang Le — who has been identified as the extramarital partner of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Reports say the company's office is rarely lit and difficult to reach by phone, and that the number listed on its website connects not to an office but to a private residence. The murky scale and track record of the firm have fueled suspicions that it may be a front company set up to acquire export-restricted Nvidia chips, given that it conducted at least $4.6 billion worth of business with Nvidia while allegedly helping smuggle those chips into China.

According to Singapore's Straits Times on Tuesday (local time), when allegations first emerged in October last year that Megaspeed had helped smuggle Nvidia's most advanced AI chips into China, reporters found the company's office on the seventh floor of a premium building in Singapore's central business district with its door consistently shut and calls going unanswered.

A tenant in the same building said the lights had always been off since Megaspeed moved in, adding that people were rarely seen entering, leaving or working inside the office.

The office sits in one of Singapore's most expensive commercial districts. Another tenant said it was strange that the company would pay such steep rent while leaving the space empty.

The South China Morning Post also visited the office on Monday (local time) but was turned away. AFP reported that when one of its journalists called the phone number listed on Megaspeed's website, the person who answered said it was a private home, not an office, and that they had no knowledge of Megaspeed.

The company's website describes Megaspeed as a "core business partner" for Nvidia's Asia-Pacific computing power cloud operations and says it runs multiple data centers across Southeast Asia. Yet the company's unclear scale, track record and physical presence have raised eyebrows over how it could be conducting deals worth $4.6 billion a year with Nvidia.

Megaspeed is believed to have imported at least $4.6 billion worth of Nvidia AI equipment through its Malaysian subsidiary Speed Matrix. US authorities have been investigating the company since 2024 on suspicion that it has been smuggling some of the Nvidia chips — banned from export to China — into the country.

The possibility that Megaspeed served as a front company to procure export-restricted Nvidia chips and channel them to China has been raised in that context. Singapore authorities said last year, when allegations against Megaspeed first surfaced, that they were investigating the company for a possible violation of local law, though they offered no specifics. More recently, after espionage allegations linking Alice Huang to China emerged, Singapore police said the investigation into Megaspeed remains ongoing but that they are not probing any connection between Alice Huang and China.


kate01@heraldcorp.com