The espionage and affair scandal shaking Nvidia has taken another turn: Alice Huang, the businesswoman suspected of spying who had an affair with the company’s founder and chief executive, Jensen Huang, has returned to China and is now living in Beijing, with the knowledge of local security officials and apparently under their protection. Bloomberg reported this on Thursday morning, citing people familiar with the matter.

The development comes as Nvidia’s board examines the allegations, amid the possibility that the scandal could lead to the removal of Huang, one of the most influential figures in the technology industry.

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Many unanswered questions

The report says it is unclear exactly when Huang arrived in Beijing, why she decided to return to China or what she is doing now. All Bloomberg’s attempts to contact her have been unsuccessful. Her whereabouts became one of the central questions in a scandal that began with the disclosure of her personal relationship with Nvidia’s chief executive and developed into suspicions involving US national security.

Huang, also known as Huang Le, is a former journalist and businesswoman who has become a significant player in Asia’s artificial intelligence infrastructure sector in recent years. She is behind Megaspeed International, a company that provides access to computing power based on Nvidia chips, including to Chinese customers.

Before entering the cloud computing sector, Alice Huang worked in finance. From November 2015, she held a senior management position at the investment firm Shanghai Hexi Investment. Before that, she held roles at the Chinese securities firm Citic Securities and at HSBC. Her early career also included work in media and television.

Now that she is in Beijing with the knowledge of Chinese security officials, her business future remains unclear. Nvidia, too, is awaiting developments in its internal investigation. According to Bloomberg, the prospect of Jensen Huang being forced to leave his post has become a real possibility.

Her name became linked to the scandal after Jensen Huang admitted having an extramarital affair and allegations emerged that Alice Huang had worked for Chinese intelligence services. Nvidia’s board opened an investigation, while questions began to emerge about her business connections and the access she had to the company’s senior leadership. China has denied that she is a spy, and no public evidence substantiating the suspicions against her has been released so far.

The Alibaba connection

One of Megaspeed’s customers is the Chinese technology giant Alibaba, which rents computing power based on Nvidia chips through facilities in South-East Asia. Alibaba itself has recently been the focus of US government security concerns following allegations of links to the Chinese military. The company denied those allegations and declined to comment to Bloomberg on its business relationship with Megaspeed.

This activity illustrates one of Washington’s biggest problems in restricting chip exports to China: even when advanced chips cannot be exported to the country, Chinese companies may still gain access to their processing power through server farms in other countries. Renting computing power does not necessarily breach export restrictions, but it makes it harder for the US government to monitor the use of the technology it is seeking to restrict.