Singapore’s Ministry of Commerce and Trade (MTI) mentioned in an announcement Saturday that it expects U.S. corporations to adjust to U.S. export controls and native legal guidelines, following questions over the chips utilized by China’s DeepSeek to provide its AI mannequin.
Markets had been rocked this week after DeepSeek claimed its massive language mannequin outperforms OpenAI’s however value a fraction of the worth to coach. Nevertheless, questions had been quickly raised over the provenance of the semiconductors used to construct DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning mannequin given U.S. restrictions on exporting superior AI chips in China.
Bloomberg on Friday reported that U.S. officers had been investigating whether or not DeepSeek had purchased superior semiconductors from chipmaker Nvidia by way of third events in Singapore.
A Nvidia spokesperson advised CNBC Monday that the chips utilized by DeepSeek had been totally export-compliant. DeepSeek was not instantly obtainable for remark when contacted by CNBC.
“We anticipate US corporations, like Nvidia, to adjust to US export controls and our home laws. Our customs and regulation enforcement businesses will proceed to work carefully with their US counterparts,” MTI mentioned in its assertion.
“We now have all the time upheld the rule of regulation, and acted decisively and firmly towards people and firms that flout the principles.”
In its third-quarter outcomes printed in November, Nvidia mentioned that Singapore accounts for nearly 22% of its income however added that: “most shipments related to Singapore income had been to places aside from Singapore and shipments to Singapore had been insignificant.”
MTI cited Nvidia’s feedback in its Saturday assertion and mentioned the chipmaker mentioned there was no cause to imagine that DeepSeek had obtained any export-controlled merchandise by way of Singapore.
“Singapore is a world enterprise hub. Main US and European corporations have vital operations right here. Nvidia has defined that many of those clients use their enterprise entities in Singapore to buy chips for merchandise destined for the US and different Western international locations,” MTI added.
— CNBC’s Ryan Browne contributed to this report.