The Malaysian government is verifying media reports that a Chinese company may circumvent our export curb on high-end AI chips by using servers from Nvidia Chips in Southeast Asian countries.
this Wall Street Journal The report said Chinese engineers flew to Malaysia in March to carry hard drives with data to build artificial intelligence models in Malaysia’s data centers using advanced NVIDIA chips.
The report said engineers plan to bring AI models back to China.
The United States has weakened its exports to China’s advanced semiconductors, including those made by U.S. tech giant NVIDIA, as it tries to maintain its competitive advantage over the technology.
A statement from the Malaysian Ministry of Trade said on Wednesday that “if any domestic laws or regulations are violated, the matter is being verified with relevant agencies.”
The ministry said that although servers using NVIDIA and AI chips are not classified as controlled goods under Malaysian law, the country “will cooperate with any government that needs to assist in monitoring the trade of sensitive goods under the export control of their respective countries”.
The statement said Malaysia’s data centers are “free to make their own business decisions”, but added that it is illegal for anyone or company to circumvent export controls.
The Ministry of Trade said, “It will always be against any company operating in Malaysia, including all companies operating in violation of Malaysia and international trade regulations, including those involved in the semiconductor and AI industries.”
When asked about the report, Beijing insisted that Chinese companies operate in accordance with local laws and regulations.
“At the same time, it opposes any actions that force other countries to restrict their cooperation with China,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told the regular press conference.
He added: “China is willing to work with countries in the region, including Malaysia, to jointly maintain a free and open international trade order.”
Singapore reportedly accused three frauds in March of being linked to transferring AI-powered Nvidia chips to China.
The Singapore government said the servers of AI-powered NVIDIA chips shipped from the United States to Singapore eventually arrived in Malaysia, but the final destination was unknown.
Local media shifted its case to NVIDIA chips allegedly from Singapore for use by Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek.
In January, DeepSeek released the R1 Chatbot, shaking the global technology market and claiming its tools can bring the capacity of the top U.S. AI products to a fraction of its cost.
