Malaysian Ministry Of Trade Investigate The Use Of Nvidia AI Chips By Chinese Companies

JAKARTA The Malaysian Ministry of Trade is investigating media reports that a Chinese company in Malaysia uses servers equipped with Nvidia artificial intelligence (AI) chips to train large language models.

In an official statement on Wednesday, June 18, the ministry stated that it was still verifying with relevant agencies to determine whether any laws or domestic regulations had been violated.

Earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported that engineers from China arrived in Malaysia in early March carrying a hard drive suitcase, with the aim of building an AI model at a data center in Malaysia using an Nvidia chip-based server.

US Export Restrictions

President Joe Biden's administration has previously imposed restrictions on the export of state-of-the-art AI chips to China. Malaysia is included in the second-degree country category, with limits on the number of AI chips that can be accepted.

However, under President Donald Trump, the restrictions have been lifted. However, the US government still provides guidance for US technology companies to take steps to prevent US-made AI chips from being used in AI model training by Chinese entities.

Until now, there has been no official statement from the Chinese company regarding the report, and an investigation in Malaysia is still ongoing.