KUALA LUMPUR, March 4 — Penang-based NationGate Holdings Bhd has today denied that it is the company involved in the fraudulent movement of Nvidia chips from Singapore to be used by Chinese AI firm DeepSeek.
The electronics manufacturing services firm said in a Bursa Malaysia filing today that it remains committed to transparency and compliance with all relevant regulations and will continue to monitor the situation closely.
“We would like to clarify that our Company has no involvement whatsoever in the ongoing court case,” it said in a reply to a query by Bursa malaysia.
“We understand that the matter pertains to a company which is an Nvidia Cloud Partner (NCP) and is not connected to our Group.”
This comes as the Bursa yesterday issued an unusual market activity (UMA) query to NationGate, asking it to explain its sharp fall in price.
Subsequently, trading involving its shares was halted between 9 and 10am this morning.
NationGate’s shares fell from RM1.85 per unit to RM1.30 yesterday. It has returned to RM1.56 today.
Yesterday, Singapore’s Home Minister K. Shanmugam was reported saying servers that may contain AI-powering Nvidia chips shipped from the United States to Singapore ended up in Malaysia.
The servers were supplied to Singapore-based companies by US firms Dell and Super Micro, according to Shanmugam.
In response, the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (Miti) said it is investigating the allegation.
Last week, Tthree men have reportedly been charged in Singapore with fraud in a case allegedly linked to US chipmaker Nvidia, amid increased scrutiny over the island’s role in global semiconductor trade.
The charges come as Singapore faces scrutiny from the United States over allegations that Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek circumvented US export restrictions on advanced Nvidia chips by sourcing them through third parties, including entities in Singapore.
DeepSeek recently gained attention after launching an AI assistant at significantly lower costs than US models, which led to concerns about US dominance in AI and triggered a sell-off in technology stocks, erasing nearly US$1 trillion (RM4.4 trillion) in market value.
Following Nvidia’s financial disclosures that 22 per cent of its third-quarter billings were linked to Singapore, Singapore’s Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng told its Parliament that less than 1 per cent of Nvidia’s revenue involved products physically delivered to Singapore.
Tan also noted that the majority of Nvidia’s revenue billed to Singaporean business entities did not involve physical shipments into the country, with the chipmaker’s products primarily used by major enterprises and the government.
