Southeast Asia’s chip and data center industries could face more scrutiny after reports that former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had an affair with a suspected Chinese spy linked to Megaspeed, a Singapore-based cloud computing firm with operations in several countries.

Reports said Chinese customers accessed Nvidia chips through the company.

US lawmakers are seeking tighter curbs on China’s access to advanced AI chips. Current export restrictions do not clearly cover remote access through overseas cloud and data center facilities.

Possible measures could include new export rules and licensing requirements for Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Malaysia said on November 12 that it was considering a law to monitor data center operations and the use of high-performance chips.

In February 2025, Singapore said 22% of Nvidia’s chip sales were booked to entities with operations in the city-state, but only 1% of the chips physically arrived there. Such gaps can reflect regional invoicing rather than local demand.

🔗 Source: Reuters