Malaysia under US pressure to stem flow of Nvidia chips to China
Malaysia’s trade minister said the US wanted Malaysia to closely track the movement of cutting-edge Nvidia chips that enter the country amid suspicions that many are ending up in China, FT reports.
Malaysia plans to tighten regulations on semiconductors as it comes under increasing US pressure to stem the flow of chips critical to the development of AI to China, according to a report by the Financial Times.
Malaysia’s Trade Minister Zafrul Aziz said that the US government wanted Malaysia to closely track the movement of cutting-edge Nvidia chips that enter the country amid suspicions that many are ending up in China, the report said.
US’s export controls involve a three-tier licensing system for AI chips, with the aim of thwarting Chinese companies from accessing Nvidia’s powerful chips.
“[The US is] asking us to make sure that we monitor every shipment that comes to Malaysia when it involves Nvidia chips,” Aziz told the FT. “They want us to make sure that servers end up in the data centres that they’re supposed to and not suddenly move to another ship.”
The US is probing if China’s AI startup DeepSeek has been using the banned chips.
According to a Reuters report, Malaysia is investigating if local laws were breached in the shipment of servers linked to a Singapore fraud case, which may have contained chips subject to US’s export control rules.
Singapore recently arrested nine people, with three charged in a USD 390 million fraud case involving the alleged sale of Nvidia chips to China through Malaysia.
