The Malaysian government plans to implement stricter controls to prevent advanced Nvidia semiconductors from flowing into China, following a request from the United States, Bloomberg reported on the 24th.
Malaysia's Minister of International Trade and Industry, Azmin Azis, stated in an interview with the Financial Times (FT) published that day that the U.S. government asked Malaysia to closely investigate shipments of Nvidia chips. Minister Azis said, "The U.S. wants the final destination of servers equipped with Nvidia semiconductors to be Malaysian data centers, and does not want them suddenly transferred to other vessels."
This is related to a recent case under investigation in Singapore. The Singaporean government is tracking the final destination of servers, which may have contained Nvidia chips, that were shipped from Singapore to Malaysia. In connection with this, Singaporean authorities have charged three men with providing false information about the hardware's end users to server suppliers Dell Technologies and Super Micro Computer. According to the authorities, the hardware may have included Nvidia chips that are banned from sale in China.
Bloomberg explained that if the servers indeed contained Nvidia chips and were headed to China, this could constitute a violation of U.S. trade regulations. The United States prohibits the export of advanced semiconductors and related equipment to China.
After the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek caused a global sensation, suspicions arose that U.S.-made advanced semiconductors were entering China through detours via Singapore, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates. Bloomberg reported that the Donald Trump administration is currently investigating whether DeepSeek purchased Nvidia chips, which are banned from export, through third parties in Singapore.
In U.S. political circles, concerns have been raised about the possibility of Nvidia chips being re-exported to China, pointing out that although the physical shipment volume to Singapore is relatively small, about a quarter of Nvidia's sales occur in Singapore.
However, Singapore and Nvidia have stated that many Nvidia customers use Singapore as a payment hub, and the actual physical delivery of Nvidia products to Singapore is only on a small scale.
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