Singapore disclosed last week that servers implicated in a recent fraud case were procured from U.S. companies and potentially contained Nvidia's high-performance chips. The situation involved three individuals, one of whom was a Chinese national. Media reports linked the incident to the transfer of Nvidia's AI chips to the Chinese AI firm DeepSeek.
"We assessed that the servers may contain Nvidia chips," stated Singapore's Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam during a press briefing on Monday.
The minister revealed that the servers were sourced from Dell Technologies and Super Micro Computer by Singaporean entities before being dispatched to Malaysia. He confirmed that it was unclear if Malaysia was the final destination, mentioning an ongoing independent investigation spurred by an anonymous tip-off.
Additionally, Singapore has reached out to U.S. authorities to determine if the servers contained U.S. export-controlled items, expressing readiness to cooperate in any collaborative inquiry.
The U.S. is scrutinizing whether DeepSeek, the Chinese company under investigation for its AI model's performance, had access to prohibited U.S. chips destined for China. Recent reports indicated that Chinese educational institutions received Nvidia chips through server products from Dell, Super Micro, and Gigabyte Technology.
This Singapore incident forms part of a wider inquiry involving 22 individuals and businesses suspected of falsifying information. There are growing apprehensions about organized smuggling of AI chips to China through countries like Singapore.
Singapore stands as Nvidia's second-largest market globally, representing 18% of its revenue in the latest fiscal year. Despite this, actual shipments to Singapore accounted for less than 2%, with the country serving as a hub for invoicing transactions to other markets.
Several Western AI figures, including Scale AI's CEO Alexandr Wang, alleged that DeepSeek possessed a substantial number of restricted Nvidia chips. Wang's claims remain unsubstantiated, with no response to requests for evidence provided to Reuters.
DeepSeek has not publicly addressed Wang's accusations, stating their use of legally obtainable Nvidia H800 chips and highlighting a supercomputing cluster containing Nvidia A100 chips.
Requests for comment from Nvidia, DeepSeek, Super Micro, and Dell have as yet gone unanswered.