In news that will surprise absolutely no one who has watched the AI gold rush, US intelligence agencies reportedly believe that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was targeted by a Chinese spy who had done business with him, according to a New York Times report. Because if you're going to spy on the company powering the AI boom, you might as well go straight to the top.

The alleged spy is Alice Huang - also known as Huang Le - an executive at Singapore-based datacenter company Megaspeed. She is of no relation to the Nvidia CEO, which is probably the only detail that isn't awkward here. Alice Huang had previously been suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips to China, which prompted American officials to surveil and monitor her. Those officials eventually determined she was acting as a Chinese intelligence asset, passing commercial information to Beijing, the Times reported, citing unnamed sources.

During that surveillance, officials reportedly found that Alice Huang had developed a close relationship with Nvidia's CEO. Nvidia's powerful chips are the cornerstone of the AI boom, which has vaulted Jensen Huang into one of the most influential leadership positions in the industry - and into a close partnership with Donald Trump as the US government tries to defend its position as a leader in AI development. Nothing says "national security" like a CEO who is simultaneously the most important person in AI and a close ally of the president.

White House officials are reportedly alarmed by Alice Huang's access to the head of Nvidia precisely because of that close relationship with Trump, according to the Times. The Trump administration has imposed restrictions on exports of advanced AI chips to China as a matter of national security, and Megaspeed's Huang was suspected of helping the government get around those restrictions. So, to recap: a suspected chip smuggler allegedly got cozy with the CEO of the company whose chips she was suspected of smuggling - while that CEO was tight with the president imposing the export controls. You couldn't script this if you tried.

In a statement to the New York Times, Nvidia said there was nothing out of the ordinary about the CEO's interactions with Alice Huang. "Meetings with customers are part of a CEO's job; Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year," a spokesperson said. Megaspeed and customers like it "receive ordinary business information - not sensitive Nvidia trade secrets - and zero information relevant to national security." Which is exactly what you'd expect them to say, and also exactly what a spy would want you to believe. But sure, let's go with "ordinary business information."