February 26, 2025, Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California.
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Malaysia said it would require “necessary action” against Malaysian companies if it was found to be involved in a fraud case related to the alleged Nvidia chip move from Singapore to China.
This is reportedly that Singapore Law and Home Minister K Shanmugam said on Monday that the server in the fraud case contained Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips and was then sent to Malaysia.
On February 27, Singapore accused three men of fraud, saying local broadcaster CNA understands the case is related to alleged Nvidia chip moves.
“The question is whether Malaysia was its final destination or was it from Malaysia. This has been to a place that is not certain at this point,” Shanmugam told reporters.
Speaking to CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia on Tuesday, Malaysia’s Minister of Investment and Industry Tengku Zafrul Aziz said there was no information that the data center company operating in Malaysia “is not using the chips it uses.”
He said such servers are imported by data center companies. MicrosoftAWS and Google.
Before going to Malaysia, Singapore’s Shanmugum said that Nvidia’s chips were embedded in servers Dell and Supermicro offer Singapore-based companies. He added: “There may have been some misrepresentation at the server’s final destination.”
When asked if Malaysia knows where the servers are currently located, Zahur replied, “We don’t know,” adding that Malaysian authorities are discussing with data centre companies to see if they’ve gone to the right people.
“At this point, there have been no incidents like Malaysia have ever been. We are investigating whether they are there. We will definitely discuss with Singapore. Then the companies must be held responsible by the relevant authorities,” he added.
The CNA also reported that two Singaporeans were charged with criminal conspiracy involving fraud against a server’s supplier.
CNA is said to have made a false statement in 2024 that it would not be forwarded to anyone other than the “end-user’s approved ultimate consignee.”
The charges also come after Reuters reported in late January that the US Department of Commerce was considering whether Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is using US chips that are not permitted to ship to China.
“The organized AI chip smuggling into China has been tracked from countries including Malaysia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates,” Reuters said, citing anyone familiar with the issue.
Zafrul tells CNBC that Malaysia checks chip destinations, but “What I can say today is that chips aren’t meant to be in Malaysia in the first place, so why are they leaving Singapore?”
