Singapore is investigating whether Dell and Super Micro servers shipped to Malaysia housed Nvidia chips barred from China – highlighting the role of middlemen in funnelling high-end semiconductors.
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The Southeast Asian nation’s law minister on Monday outlined specifics of the investigation after local media reported police arrested several people for their alleged roles in procuring and shipping Nvidia chips in violation of US sanctions. They stand accused of misleading server suppliers of the actual end users of the hardware, which were shipped from Singapore to Malaysia, Law Minister K. Shanmugam told reporters. Authorities are now investigating if the servers, made by Dell and Super Micro, made their way to other countries, he said.
The case casts a spotlight on Singapore-based entities’ role in channelling Nvidia chips to China and potentially other countries restricted by the US. The case comes weeks after it was reported that the United States was investigating whether Chinese artificial-intelligence sensation DeepSeek had circumvented US chip curbs with help of third parties in Singapore.
Singapore has requested further information from Malaysia and the US to determine the final destination of the servers, Shanmugam said.
“The question is whether Malaysia was a final destination or from Malaysia it went to somewhere else, which we do not know for certain at this point,” he said.
The question is whether Malaysia was a final destination or from Malaysia it went to somewhere else
A preliminary investigation found that the chips in those servers could potentially subject the devices to US export restrictions. “We assessed that the servers may contain Nvidia chips,” Shanmugam said, stopping short of confirming that.