Has China's highly regarded “AI Breakthrough” star DeepSeek obtained advanced NVIDIA computer chips through Singapore and Malaysia?
This is a problem, now raised by authorities in Southeast Asian city-states and their close-range neighbors.
A case that was accused of fraudulently providing U.S. servers to Malaysia involved a $390 million deal, Singapore's prosecutor told the court on Thursday.
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Three men were accused of fraud against Dell and Super Micro, which is where the false representative servers eventually arrived.
Singapore Media Link the case to NVIDIA's AI chips may be transferred To DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence company.
The U.S. is investigating whether DeepSeek's AI model in January shocked the technology world, whether he has been using banned American chips.
Singapore authorities said the server may contain NVIDIA chips, but did not say whether these chips are high-end semiconductors controlled by U.S. exports.
Asked about potential contacts with DeepSeek, Law and Home Minister K Shanmugam last week said he did not want to speculate.
The three suspects are Singaporean Aaron Woon, 41-year-old Alan Wei and China's state Lee Ming (51-year-old).
Prosecutors said Thursday they believe Wei paid tens of millions of dollars in dividends, while Woon received millions of dollars in bonuses.
When asked about Wei Yi's attorney, Shashi Nathan, he said he wanted to get evidence from prosecutors about the value of Wei Yi's so-called fraudulent transactions.
Lee's attorney declined to comment, while Woon's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case is part of a broader police investigation in Singapore against 22 people and companies suspected of false representation. The other six people were arrested.
Prosecutors also said Thursday that police are investigating whether other suppliers are involved in similar cases.
Malaysia is also investigating whether its laws have been violated.
- Jim Pollard's additional editor Reuters
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