Malaysia probes whether Megaspeed subsidiary re-exported AI chips

TechFlow reports, on November 13, that Bloomberg said Malaysia is investigating whether AI chips were re-exported through Speedmatrix Sdn Bhd, the Malaysian subsidiary of Singapore-based cloud computing company Megaspeed International.

Malaysia's Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Johari Abdul Ghani said on November 13 that the government has not received a formal investigation request and will cooperate if either the U.S. or Singapore submits one. He distinguished between two scenarios: companies purchasing GPUs for use in their own data centers and re-exporting the chips, noting that only the latter warrants investigation, and said the matter has been explained to data center operators. Prime Minister Anwar said on the same day that there are currently 'no signs' that chips have been re-exported from Malaysia and that Malaysia has not received a formal request from Singapore or the U.S.

Malaysia's Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry clarified on the same day that it has never 'cleared' Megaspeed International or its Malaysian affiliate Speedmatrix, and that visits to data centers are part of routine monitoring; Speedmatrix is a tenant at local data centers. The issue stems from U.S. media reports of a personal relationship between NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and former Megaspeed executive Alice Huang. Jensen Huang has resigned as president, CEO and director, and NVIDIA has launched an independent investigation. Megaspeed said it attaches great importance to compliance with U.S. export controls and is willing to cooperate with regulators, while China said the espionage allegations are a pretext for technological containment.

Source: TechFlow