Two weeks after the US restricted Nvidia’s China chips, a four-month-old Shanghai firm became a ‘preferred partner’ - here’s why the timing matters

Just four months after it was founded, a Shanghai company secured Nvidia's Preferred Cloud Partner status in October 2023. It came only two weeks after US expanded export restrictions on Nvidia's chips designed for China. The company Shanghai Century Litong had managed to obtain large quantities of Nvidia GPUs that distributors already had in their warehouses, as per investigation by The Information.

Century Litong's rise attracted attention because of its reported links to Alice Huang's family. And a wider network of businesses involved in supplying Nvidia chips to China. According to the report, the value of imports handled by the network is more than $7.5 billion and it estimates that around 240,000 restricted chips reached China.

Four month old Shanghai company secured Nvidia's preferred partner status

Century Litong was founded in June 2023 through Shanghai Century Longteng, its sole founding shareholder. By October, its major shareholder had disclosed that the company had received Nvidia's preferred cloud partner credential, as per The Next Read by Rushabh Shah.


The timing is notable as the US had expanded restrictions on Nvidia's A800 and H800 processors just two weeks earlier. Nvidia had developed these chips for the Chinese market after earlier US rules restricted sales of its A100 and H100 processors to China.

The October 2023 restrictions blocked new sales of the A800 & H800 to China. Distributors could still sell stock they had already received.

Century Litong secured large quantities of existing inventory reportedly via Nvidia distributors.

Why Nvidia's preferred partner status was important

Nvidia's Preferred Cloud Partner programme requires companies to meet certain targets involving technical expertise, training and revenue. The requirements and benefits vary by region and partner type, according to Nvidia's official partner programme information.

Century Litong's access to large quantities of Nvidia GPUs is notable because distributors could continue selling inventory they already held after US restrictions took effect. The Next Read reported that the Shanghai company secured large volumes of these chips through Nvidia distributors.

However that doesn't mean that Nvidia directly allocated every shipment to Century Litong.

Alice Huang's sister was connected to Century Litong's ownership

Shanghai Century Longteng was the company's founding sole shareholder. The Information traced Longteng's ownership to Shanghai Yunxi Investment in which Alice Huang had previously held a 99% stake.

Huang transferred that stake to her sister Huang Yu, in 2017. Longteng remained indirectly owned by Yunxi until June 2024, when ownership structure changed, according to The Next Read.

Huang Yu also holds a 31% stake in Shanghai Hexi Capital, an investment firm founded by Alice Huang's husband, Kang Wei. Kang was a major shareholder in Hexi until 2023.

(So these connections brought Century Litong into investigation of Alice Huang's wider business network. And they don't by themselves show that the Shanghai company violated US export restrictions.)

$7.5 billion Nvidia chip network and 240,000 restricted GPUs

Century Litong was one of several companies examined, another was Megaspeed, a Singapore based company where Alice Huang served as managing director from March to November 2023.

Megaspeed imported about $4.6 billion worth of Nvidia AI chips between 2023 and 2025, according to figures from a Bloomberg report cited by The Next Read.

Its Malaysian subsidiary Speedmatrix received more than 200 shipments of Nvidia hardware worth roughly $2 billion between June 2024 and June 2025, according to The New York Times.

Some of the hardware obtained through the network went to data centres in Southeast Asia, while some reportedly reached Century Litong. The Shanghai company also obtained GPUs through other sources, with Alice Huang reportedly helping when orders ran into difficulties.

The Information estimated that about 240,000 restricted Nvidia chips moved into China via the wider network. And most were H100 and H200 GPUs along with some A100 processors.