A senior Singapore official has said that Singapore accounts for only a small portion of Nvidia Corporation’s revenue. This comes as the US is investigating whether Chinese AI startup Deepseek secured chips through the country.
Tan See Leng, Singapore’s second minister for trade and industry, told lawmakers that the physical delivery of products sold by Nvidia to the country represents less than 1% of Nvidia’s overall revenue. The second minister added that most products are deployed for major enterprises and the Government.
Nvidia has centralized its billing for procured goods and services in Singapore
Tan noted that while Nvidia attributed 22% of its sales in the August-October period to Singapore, the country was where Nvidia’s customers received their bills.
Tan said;
It is common practice for global entities to centralize the billing for procured goods and services in their hubs, but this is separate from where the products are shipped to so far from our checks.
– Tan See Leng
He added that Nvidia’s products are mainly deployed here for major enterprises and the Government.Â
The Trump administration is investigating whether DeepSeek acquired advanced Nvidia semiconductors through third parties in Singapore. The US had restricted the sales of chips used for developing AI tasks.
Nvidia has maintained that it doesn’t think DeepSeek abused export controls. However, Singapore has said its customs and law enforcement department is open to working with Washington to determine the facts.
DeepSeek exposed the US in the Artificial intelligence race
A China-based startup recently launched a chatbot known as R1, which is believed to perform better than tools from the US. The launch signaled that China is ahead in the AI race than most people believe. It also challenged the US dominance in the AI arena.
Some famous engineers have praised R1’s capabilities. But beyond their praises, DeepSeek has touted the tool’s low cost and efficiency, prompting rivals to speculate whether it was built on the back of Western technology.
On Tuesday, Tan confirmed that Singapore customs would work closely with its foreign peers, including the United States, to ensure investigations are done conveniently. He said his Government does not condone businesses trying to use their ties with Singapore to bypass export controls imposed by other countries.Â
Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, responding to additional questions from Associate Professor Lim about the role of foreign policy in the country’s trade decisions, said they are legally obliged to enforce the unilateral export measures of countries worldwide. However, it will enforce the multilateral agreed-upon export control regimes.
Amid ongoing concerns about DeepSeek’s alleged collusion with the Chinese Communist Party to steal American data, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will launch an investigation into the Chinese artificial intelligence platform, which has also failed to comply with the state’s Data Privacy and Security Act.
Both Google and Apple have already been sought by Paxton to provide documents submitted by DeepSeek to be published on their respective app stores, as well as their analyses of the AI app.
According to Paxton, the United States and Texas will continue to be at the forefront of global AI innovation, and any CCP-aligned company that tries to undermine that dominance by violating the rights of Texans and illegally undercutting American technology companies will face the full force of the law.
This development comes weeks after DeepSeek use was prohibited in Texas government-issued devices, a ban that has since been adopted in New York and Virginia.
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