Megaspeed: The $3 Billion Neocloud at the Center of America's Leakiest Export Control

A Singapore neocloud grew from $33M to $3B in one year by buying Nvidia chips and renting compute to Chinese firms — exposing the structural gap between US export controls and the cloud-rental loophole.

The story of Megaspeed is not really about a CEO's affair with an alleged spy. It is about the architectural flaw in US chip export controls: you can ban selling advanced GPUs to China while tolerating the rental of compute built on those same GPUs to Chinese firms. Megaspeed — a Singapore-registered neocloud that grew its assets from $33 million to $3 billion in a single year — drove straight through that gap.

Megaspeed, originally founded as 7Road International in 2015 and renamed in March 2023, advertises itself as an Nvidia cloud partner providing access to Nvidia's full GPU product line, including the advanced GB200 NVL72 computing system. Its largest client is Alibaba, which also lent money to Megaspeed via subsidiaries in June 2024. The company operates data centers across southeast Asia and rents compute to clients, including major Chinese tech firms. The US Commerce Department began investigating Megaspeed's ownership structure and potential chip diversion in 2024. The Justice Department has since taken over the probe — a significant escalation reportedly triggered after an Nvidia executive directly contacted Commerce about the inquiry. Singapore police opened a parallel investigation in December 2025 into whether Megaspeed violated local laws. All investigations are believed to be ongoing. Megaspeed has denied all wrongdoing. The personal dimension involves Alice H., described as an influential figurehead at Megaspeed who served as managing director for eight months in 2023 and is accused of being a Chinese spy. The Financial Times reported she leveraged her close access to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to pitch AI chip deals to Chinese investors, seeking investment in early 2025 for a southeast Asian data center project while citing easy access to Nvidia chips and a close relationship with Alibaba. Nvidia conducted its own inquiry and said in December 2025 it found no evidence of chip diversion, that Megaspeed was fully owned and operated outside China with no Chinese shareholders, and that facility visits revealed nothing untoward. This self-investigation carries obvious limitations — Nvidia is both the supplier profiting from the sales and the entity certifying compliance. Megaspeed is not an anomaly. It sits within a broader pattern of entities navigating or violating US export restrictions. Hao Global, a US-based shell company with Chinese links, pleaded guilty to smuggling Nvidia chips in December 2025. Taiwanese authorities raided Super Micro Computer offices in June 2026 as part of a separate chip-smuggling investigation. The Trump administration approved several Chinese companies to buy advanced Nvidia H200 chips in December 2025, though strict licensing controls have limited actual flow. The structural problem persists: export controls target chip sales but leave a gaping loophole around cloud compute rental. As long as that asymmetry exists, neoclouds in permissive jurisdictions will continue to arbitrage it — and the question becomes whether the US is enforcing a real restriction or performing security theater while its most valuable chip company collects billions from the intermediaries.