Organised AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of countries including Malaysia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, the source said. The Commerce Department and DeepSeek did not immediately return requests for comment.

US officials are deep into an investigation to find out if Chinese AI startup DeepSeek found a backdoor route to Nvidia’s high-end chips through Singapore, evading American export bans.

DeepSeek- which is backed by Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer- had said in July 2022 that it owned and operated a cluster of 10,000 A100 Nvidia chips, which are a less advanced version of Nvidia’s AI chips, developed specifically for China. The chips are also compliant with U.S. export restrictions.

US officials are probing whether Chinese AI startup DeepSeek bought advanced Nvidia Corp. semiconductors through third parties in Singapore, circumventing US restrictions on sales of chips used for artificial intelligence tasks,

Two US lawmakers are urging tighter export controls on Nvidia's AI chips, fearing China's growing AI capabilities. Their concerns stem from reports that a Chinese firm used these chips — currently outside the scope of U.