Malaysia probes server shipments connected to Singapore fraud case

MALAYSIA is investigating if local laws were breached in the shipment of servers linked to a Singapore fraud case, as they may have contained advanced chips subject to US export controls.

Singapore charged three men late last month with fraud in a case that domestic media linked to the transfer of Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips from the country to Chinese AI firm DeepSeek.

Singapore said the servers involved in the case were supplied by US firms and shipped to Malaysia. It also said the servers may have contained Nvidia chips, without elaborating whether they are subject to US export controls.

“The Government of Malaysia is taking the necessary actions to establish whether Malaysian laws had been breached in the alleged shipment of US-sanctioned AI chips from Singapore to Malaysia,” the trade ministry said in a statement late on Tuesday (Mar 4).

It said the government is working closely with the US and Singapore to “find effective ways to address the issue of the trade involving US-sanctioned chips”.

The United States is investigating if DeepSeek, the Chinese company whose AI model’s performance rocked the tech world in January, has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China. REUTERS