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Megaspeed

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Megaspeed
Formerly7Road International (2015–2023)
TypePrivate
IndustryCloud computing
Founded2015; 11 years ago (2015)
Headquarters
Singapore
Key peopleTan Yong Pong (CEO)
Services
Total assetsIncrease US$3 billion (2024)
ParentSwiftdata
SubsidiariesSpeedmatrix
Websitemegaspeed.ai

Megaspeed International Pte. Ltd. is a cloud computing provider based in Singapore. It supplies artificial intelligence computing power and hosting services.

The company was founded in 2015 as 7Road International PTE, the Singaporean subsidiary of the Chinese gaming firm 7Road Holdings. It was acquired by Chinese investor Alice Huang in 2023, and renamed to Megaspeed. Huang served as the company's director from March to November 2023, when the company was acquired by Singaporean citizen Tan Yong Pong through his company Swiftdata. Reporting indicates Huang continue to exercise leadership over the company afterwards. Megaspeed established a close business partnership with the online Chinese retailer Alibaba Group, which became its biggest client and anchor customer for cloud services in Southeast Asia. Megaspeed also developed ties with Nvidia, becoming an Nvidia Cloud Partner. Megaspeed bought billions of dollars worth Nvidia products for data centres throughout Southeast Asia.

From 2024, the company came under investigation by the U.S. authorities for suspicions it was supplying Nvidia chips to Chinese companies without U.S. government permission. Singapore and Malaysia also launched their own investigations. The company came under further scrutiny following reports that Alice Huang was in a romantic relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

History

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Megaspeed was founded in 2015 as 7Road International PTE, the Singaporean subsidiary of the Chinese gaming firm 7Road Holdings. In 2023, a few months after the United States government imposed export restrictions on artificial intelligence chips to China, Chinese investor Alice Huang and a group of investors acquired the subsidiary. The purchase was done through a British Virgin Islands-registered company associated with Huang called Huang Le Ltd. After the purchase, the company was renamed to Megaspeed International in March 2023.[1][2] Huang joined the company and serving as its managing director until November 2023. Huang also served as the director and managing director of the company's Indonesia subsidiary in the same period.[3] Kang Wei, an executive at the private equity firm Shanghai Hexi, also worked with Huang in building the business.[4] According to a human resources manager contacted by the The New York Times in 2025, most of Megaspeed's directors were based in China and rarely visited Singapore, while James Tan, the company's Singapore director, was never present.[5]

In November 2023, Megaspeed was acquired from Huang Le Ltd by Swiftdata, a Singapore-based company owned by Singaporean citizen Tan Yong Pong, which had been incorporated a few weeks before. Following the acquisition, Tan became Megaspeed's sole director.[6] As of October 2025, Tan was residing in Shanghai.[5] Huang continued to participate in participate in the chip procurement and fundraising work of Swiftdata as a senior manager until she left the company in 2025.[7][8] Swiftdata's actual office scale in Singapore was limited, with only one storefront office and only 2 to 10 employees listed on LinkedIn. Agence France-Presse reported that the contact number listed on the company's official website was actually a private residence.[9][10] The New York Times reported Swiftdata's address led to an accounting firm in Singapore, where employees did not know how to reach Tan.[5] In 2024, Megaspeed registered affiliates across the United States, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.[11] In the same year, Tan established Speedmatrix, a Malaysia-based subsidiary.[6] The New York Times reported that the registered address of Speedmatrix in shipping records was a "dilapidated storefront outside Kuala Lumpur, where the sign out front advertised a construction company". Speedmatrix has an office on the upper floors of a shopping mall in Johor.[5]

One of Megaspeed's biggest clients became Alibaba Group, the online Chinese retailer.[12] Megaspeed was Alibaba Group's anchor customer for cloud services in Southeast Asia since the beginning, and was its biggest client.[13] The Wall Street Journal reported Alibaba Group was looking for a partner that would help it access data centers with chips from the American multinational technology corporation Nvidia. Megaspeed told the Nvidia team in an early meeting about its relationship with Alibaba Group.[14] Megaspeed later told Nvidia that Alibaba Group would be an anchor customer. Later, Megaspeed became an Nvidia Cloud Partner in the Asia-Pacific region, giving the company priority access to chips, and acquired around US$5 billion in AI chips and advanced hardware in November 2023.[15] According to the Journal, Megaspeed also brought servers it acquired from Nvidia to data centers in Malaysia, which provided computing power to Alibaba, and shipped some of the servers to China, including the Shanghai-based Century Litong which Kang had done business with.[4] In June 2024, Alibaba Group, through its Singaporean subsidiary called Apex Enterprise Solutions, lent money to Megaspeed, via its Malaysian subsidiary Speedmatrix, with Speedmatrix pledging its entire business as collateral for the loan. In 2024, Megaspeed's balance sheet increased from $33 million to $3 billion, mostly due to its subsidiaries’ dealings.[13] In the summer of 2024, Megaspeed International entered into a joint partnership with Nvidia. Megaspeed was planning on purchasing $2 billion of Nvidia's stock.[5]

The Journal reported Kang and Huang planned several data centre projects from late 2024 to June 2025, including two in Southeast Asia and one in Shanghai, with the couple expressing confidence expecting to triple their money in three years and get Nvidia chips to China.[4] Also, in 2024, Megaspeed investor presentation featured a rendering of the Yangtze River Delta Project, an artificial intelligence data center located in Shanghai.[16] Between May and June 2024, a subsidiary of Shanghai Longteng Intelligent Computing, a company founded by Alice Huang and majority-owned by her sister, Huang Yu, until January 2026, installed computing servers valued at ¥747 million renminbi at the Shanghai facility.[16] Another company, Shanghai Shuoyao Technology Corporation, had installed Nvidia H100 and H200 processors on its data center. Shanghai Shuoyao has been described by Bloomberg News as "something of Megaspeed’s Chinese corporate twin".[16] Bloomberg reported that the company's posts on its WeChat account of its Indonesia staff depict Megaspeed's employees, Shanghai Shuoyao's map of its data centers resembles Megaspeed's facilities, while the company's website was "almost a carbon copy" of Megaspeed sub-brand Lumina's page before it was taken down. Additionally, Shanghai Shuoyao's job ads in China included work for "H100, H200 and other GPU models".[15] The Yangtze River Delta Project's president was reported by Shanghai media to be Kang Wei, and Shanghai Hexi provided financial backing for the project.[16]

In January 2025, a unit of Shanghai Longteng Intelligent Computing filed documents with the People's Bank of China pledging 193 servers at the Yangtze River Delta Project as collateral for financing.[16] The hardware, valued at ¥485 million renminbi, included 119 servers from Gigabyte Technology, 52 servers from Super Micro Computer containing restricted Nvidia H100 and H200 chips, and 22 Dell Technologies servers containing restricted Nvidia H800 chips.[16] The Dell servers were originally sold to Aperia Cloud Services, another Singapore-based Nvidia Cloud Partner.[16] In February 2025, Dell ceased sales to Aperia due to unauthorized diversion concerns, and later its chief executive officer was arrested in Singapore for defrauding server suppliers.[16] In early 2025, Huang and Kang sought investment worth several hundred million dollars for a Southeast Asia data center project, and told investors they had "no problem securing GPUs" and cited Alibaba Group as a partner for the project.[13] The Straits Times reported that Megaspeed has been almost completely shut down since 2025 and has hired external legal counsel to conduct an internal investigation.[17][18]

Purchases

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Trade records and foreign media investigations show that during the period of U.S. export controls, Alice Huang intervened in the supply chain through a network of affiliated companies established in China and Singapore, facilitating the flow of up to 240,000 restricted chips, with a total value of at least US$7.5 billion, into China; and from June 2024 to February 2026, Megaspeed's affiliated companies in Malaysia mainly purchased at least US$4.8 billion worth of computing equipment (including advanced AI chips such as Nvidia GB200 NVL72 and HGX H100) through Aivres, the U.S. subsidiary of Inspur, a server manufacturer in China, for building data centers in Malaysia and Indonesia, and then leasing the computing power to Alibaba.[8][10][19]

The company started receiving multimillion-dollar shipments from Nvidia few weeks after June 2024. Nvidia had determined that Megaspeed was a Singaporean company, believing the purchases to be legal. Megaspeed bought US$1 billion worth of Nvidia technology in the next month, followed by another US$1 billion in the next nine months. A bulk of those chips were bought from Aivres and went to Speedmatrix.[5] From 2024 to 2026, the Indonesian subsidiary of Megaspeed had purchased hardware from Nvidia, including H100 processors, from Giga Computing a subsidiary of Gigabyte Technology.[3] Megaspeed imported Nvidia hardware worth at least $4.6 billion from its founding in 2023 to November 2025, including around 136,000 Nvidia GPUs; more than half of the chips are Blackwell GPUs, with the majority of such GPUs having been delivered in the six weeks leading up to 15 May 2025 and another patch having been delivered in November 2025. At least two-thirds of the company's imports are Nvidia processors.[15]

Investigations

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The amount and scale of Megaspeed's purchases far exceeded those of similar companies, which attracted the attention of the U.S. government. In 2024, during the Biden Administration, the United States Department of Commerce was investigating whether Megaspeed was circumventing American export restrictions.[5] Their suspicion held that Huang was flying to Taiwan, repackaging Nvidia chips, and smuggling them into China to be sold as Megaspeed products.[12] In September 2024, an official from the Bureau of Industry and Security visited Megaspeed's data center in Malaysia to investigate suspicions on company's purchases. The official found that a large number of Nvidia high-end equipment were still in shipping containers and had not been unpacked, installed or put into operation, causing suspicion that the park might be involved in the illegal transfer of advanced chips subject to export controls to China. Bloomberg News later reported that Megaspeed had imported about 136,000 Nvidia GPUs, but when Nvidia auditors came to inspect, they only found a few thousand of the latest model chips.[20]

After the visit, the U.S. government relayed their worries to Singapore, Malaysia and Nvidia.[5] In February 2025, Singaporean authorities initiated an investigation into Megaspeed and Alice Huang for allegedly smuggling Nvidia chips into China.[21] From 2025, the U.S. Commerce Department and intelligence agencies began investigating the company for potential export control violations regarding the alleged shipment of restricted Nvidia processors to Chinese firms. During the investigation, Nivida took the initiative to ask U.S. government officials whether it was necessary to suspend business dealings with Megaspeed, but the answer at the time was “no need”.[7] Concurrently, Singapore and Malaysia also launched investigations into Megaspeed and its subsidiary, Speedmatrix, over suspected breaches of domestic laws related to the diversion of advanced AI chips. Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs later said in November 2026 that it had sought information from Nvidia partner Supermicro, which had also supplied to Megaspeed, but the company had given "limited cooperation". It stated it had raised this issue with the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation in July 2025 and "requested their assistance in securing the company’s cooperation" but that "Despite these repeated requests, Singapore has to date received limited information or assistance in respect of the company".[22] Following a 2025 investigation, Singaporean and Taiwanese authorities barred former director Alice Huang from re-entering their countries but was allowed to return to Beijing.[23] In her absence, another CEO has been overseeing Megaspeed's operations.[12] By November 2026, Singapore prosecutors had charged five individuals in relation to the Aperia case.[24] During the same month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned following reports of an extramarital affair with Alice Huang, whom United States intelligence agencies have flagged as a Chinese intelligence asset and was using Megaspeed and its associated corporate network to pass commercial information and restricted technology to Beijing.[11] On November 13, Johari Abdul Ghani, Malaysia's Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, said that it is working with customs to determine whether any chips brought into Malaysia by SpeedMatrix, a Malaysian subsidiary of the Singapore-based cloud computing firm Megaspeed, were re-exported to other countries.[25]

The New York Times revealed that Tim Teter, general counsel of Nvidia, sent an email to investigators at the U.S. Department of Commerce who were investigating the illegal transfer of chips to China, claiming that Deputy Secretary of Commerce Jeffrey I. Kessler had agreed to let him contact the investigators, but this violated government procedures. The investigation was abruptly suspended at the end of 2025 and transferred to the U.S. Department of Justice for follow-up in 2026.[7] In addition, Axios reported that U.S. President Donald Trump approved action on the alleged transfer of Nvidia chips to China on at least three different occasions in May, August and 5 November 2026. However, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Deputy Secretary Kessler refused to take action due to concerns that the control measures would trigger a China–United States trade war.[26]

References

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  1. ↑ Berman, Noah (11 November 2026). "The Rise and Rise of Alice Huang". The Wire China. Archived from the original on 12 November 2026. Retrieved 13 November 2026.
  2. ↑ Carlson, Adam (November 9, 2026). "Former TV Reporter Is Linked to Billionaire CEO's Sex Scandal After He Admits Affair. Where Did She Go?". People. Retrieved 13 November 2026.
  3. 1 2 Lee, Wen-Yee; Silver, Andrew; Chen, Laurie; Chen, Laurie (2026-11-10). "Who is Alice Huang, the Chinese businesswoman tied to Nvidia's CEO?". Reuters. Retrieved 2026-11-13.
  4. 1 2 3 Wei, Lingling (2026-11-12). "A Mystery Businessman Introduced Jensen Huang to His Paramour. It Was Her Husband". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 2026-11-12. Retrieved 2026-11-12.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Swanson, Ana; Mickle, Tripp; Mozur, Paul; Hvistendahl, Mara (2025-10-09). "A Mystery C.E.O. and Billions in Sales: Is China Buying Banned Nvidia Chips?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2025-11-10. Retrieved 2026-11-11.
  6. 1 2 Ang, Angelica; Ganglani, Jay. "How Megaspeed built a network in Singapore and Malaysia to move $7.5 billion of Nvidia chips to Chinese companies". Fortune. Archived from the original on 2026-11-13. Retrieved 2026-11-13.
  7. 1 2 3 Williams, Nathan; Kleinman, Zoe (2026-11-09). "Nvidia就黃仁勳與疑似中國間諜有婚外情展開調查" [Nvidia launches investigation into alleged extramarital affair between Jensen Huang and suspected Chinese spy]. BBC News (in Traditional Chinese). Archived from the original on 2026-11-09. Retrieved 2026-11-10.
  8. 1 2 Wu, Yan (2026-10-30). "無懼中國女間諜風暴！ 輝達黃仁勳親解與黃樂關係：每一顆晶片都在掌控中" [Undeterred by the "Chinese female spy" controversy, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang clarifies his relationship with Huang Le: Every single chip remains under control.]. Mirror Media (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Archived from the original on 2026-11-06. Retrieved 2026-11-10.
  9. ↑ Lin, Zhiying (2026-11-09). "黃仁勳出軌｜內媒稱黃樂浸大傳理碩士畢業 知情者讚善談具氣場" [Jensen Huang’s Alleged Infidelity | Chinese Media Reports He Holds a Master’s Degree in Communication from HKBU; Acquaintances Describe Her as Articulate and Charismatic]. HK01 (in Chinese (Hong Kong)). Archived from the original on 2026-11-12. Retrieved 2026-11-10.
  10. 1 2 Thomas, Roshan (2026-11-09). "What we know about Nvidia's probe into CEO Jensen Huang". Reuters. Retrieved 2026-11-10.
  11. 1 2 Lamb, Kate; Butler, Josh (2026-11-13). "A baffling trail from Australia to Singapore: what is Megaspeed, the company implicated in downfall of Nvidia's Jensen Huang?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-11-13.
  12. 1 2 3 Mozur, Paul; Swanson, Ana; Mickle, Tripp; Forsythe, Michael (2026-11-10). "Who Is Alice Huang, the Woman in the Middle of Nvidia's Spy Scandal?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2026-11-11. Retrieved 2026-11-11.
  13. 1 2 3 Olcott, Eleanor; Wu, Zijing (9 November 2026). "Alleged Chinese spy linked to Nvidia chief pitched AI chip deals to investors". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 9 November 2026. Retrieved 13 November 2026.
  14. ↑ Olcott, Eleanor; Wu, Zijing (10 November 2026). "Alice Huang's tangled web of connections". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 11 November 2026. Retrieved 13 November 2026.
  15. 1 2 3 Hawkins, Mackenzie; Lin, Andy; Lindberg, Kari Soo (2025-12-22). "Nvidia's Biggest Southeast Asian Partner Dogged by China Chip Smuggling Questions". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 2026-10-16. Retrieved 2026-11-13.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Lin, Andy; Hawkins, Mackenzie; Lindberg, Kari Soo (2026-11-13). "Alice Huang-Linked Firm Procured Banned Nvidia Chips in China". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 2026-11-13.
  17. ↑ Liu, Yaoyang (2026-10-30). "黃仁勳據報遭中國女間諜滲透 中方批抹黑 Nvidia：正常客戶會面" [Jensen Huang Reportedly Infiltrated by Chinese Female Spy; Beijing Dismisses Claim as Smear, Nvidia Cites Routine Client Meetings]. HK01 (in Chinese (Hong Kong)). Retrieved 2026-11-10.
  18. ↑ "黃仁勳婚外情掀起國安風暴：拆解五大看點" [Jensen Huang’s Extramarital Affair Sparks a National Security Storm: Five Key Aspects to Consider]. BBC News (in Traditional Chinese). 2026-11-09. Archived from the original on 2026-11-10. Retrieved 2026-11-10.
  19. ↑ Mai, Yanting (2026-11-11). "黃樂擁港人身份 近月仍在香港設公司 疑續助「去中國化」或資本變現" [Huang Le, who holds Hong Kong residency, has continued to establish companies in Hong Kong in recent months—a move suspected of facilitating ongoing "de-Sinicization" efforts or the liquidation of capital.]. Radio France Internationale (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Retrieved 2026-11-11.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  20. ↑ Cheng, Yuen (2026-11-09). "黃仁勳出軌人設崩 即看10個關鍵詞與人物 這富商婚外情竟沒事？" [Jensen Huang’s Image Shattered by Alleged Infidelity: 10 Key Terms and Figures—How Did This Tycoon Escape Consequences for His Extramarital Affair?]. HK01 (in Chinese (Hong Kong)). Retrieved 2026-11-10.
  21. ↑ Walker, Owen (November 12, 2026). "Singapore barred Alice Huang for giving police 'inaccurate information'". Financial Times. Retrieved 2026-11-13.
  22. ↑ Mozur, Paul (2026-11-12). "Singapore Says US Not Helpful on Investigation Into Alice Huang and Megaspeed". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2026-11-12. Retrieved 2026-11-14.
  23. ↑ "Alice Huang barred from re-entering Singapore after providing inaccurate information to police: MHA". The Straits Times. 2026-11-12. ISSN 0585-3923. Retrieved 2026-11-13.
  24. ↑ "Man handed 41 charges in relation to Nvidia chips case". The Straits Times. 2026-11-13. ISSN 0585-3923. Retrieved 2026-11-13.
  25. ↑ "Malaysia says probing Megaspeed subsidiary over possible AI chip diversion". CNA. 2026-11-13. Retrieved 14 November 2026.
  26. ↑ Zhang, Hanyu (2026-11-13). "黃仁勳再被爆第三宗婚外情 美司法部稱尚未認定黃樂是間諜" [Jensen Huang faces allegations of a third extramarital affair; U.S. Department of Justice states it has not yet determined whether Huang Le is a spy.]. HK01 (in Chinese (Hong Kong)). Retrieved 2026-11-13.
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