Malaysian Trade Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz said Tuesday the country will take “necessary action” against Malaysian companies if they’re implicated in a fraud case involving Nvidia Corp. NVDA chips allegedly routed from Singapore.
What Happened: “Right now, there’s no such cases in Malaysia to date, and we are investigating,” Zafrul told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia,” adding that Malaysia has no information suggesting data center companies there are misusing chips.
The statement follows Singapore Law Minister K Shanmugam‘s Monday comments that servers in a fraud case may have contained Nvidia AI chips sent to Malaysia.
“The question is whether Malaysia was a final destination or from Malaysia, it went to somewhere else,” Shanmugam said.
Why It Matters: On Thursday, Singapore charged three men with fraud in cases linked to the alleged movement of Nvidia chips. According to Shanmugam, the chips were embedded in servers supplied by Dell Technologies Inc. DELL and Super Micro Computer Inc. SMCI to Singapore-based companies before transfer to Malaysia.
When asked if Malaysia knew where the servers were now, Zafrul replied, “we don’t know,” adding authorities are checking if they went to the right parties.
The investigation emerges amid broader concerns about restricted U.S. technology reaching China. Reuters reported in January that the U.S. Commerce Department is investigating whether Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has been using U.S. chips prohibited from export to China, noting “organized AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of countries including Malaysia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.”
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