Malaysia to tighten semiconductor regulations under US pressure, FT reports

(Reuters) -Malaysia plans to tighten regulations connected semiconductors arsenic it comes nether U.S. unit to staunch the travel to China of chips important to the improvement of artificial intelligence, the Financial Times reported connected Sunday.

Trade Minister Zafrul Aziz said that the U.S. authorities was demanding Malaysia intimately way the question of high-end Nvidia chips that participate the state implicit suspicions that galore are ending up successful China, according to the report.

"[The U.S. is] asking america to marque definite that we show each shipment that comes to Malaysia erstwhile it involves Nvidia chips,” Aziz told the newspaper.

"They privation america to marque definite that servers extremity up successful the information centres that they're expected to and not abruptly determination to different ship."

Nvidia did not instantly respond to a Reuters petition for comment.

The United States is investigating if DeepSeek, whose AI model's show rocked the tech satellite successful January, has been utilizing banned U.S. chips.

Malaysia is presently investigating if section laws were breached successful the shipment of servers linked to a Singapore fraud case, arsenic they whitethorn person contained precocious chips taxable to U.S. export controls.

Singapore prosecutors told a tribunal earlier successful March that the lawsuit successful which Singapore-based firms person been accused of fraudulently supplying U.S. servers to Malaysia involves transactions worthy $390 million.

Singapore media person linked the lawsuit to the imaginable transportation of Nvidia's artificial quality chips to Chinese artificial quality steadfast DeepSeek.

(Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal successful Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)