The logo of data center company Megaspeed International is photographed at its offices at Ocean Financial Center in Singapore on November 10, 2026.
Taryn Ng | AFP | Getty Images
Singapore is home to industry worth billions of dollars Nvidia As the city-state returns to the spotlight after a scandal involving a semiconductor company CEO, it finds itself increasingly targeted by Washington’s efforts to stop the flow of advanced AI chips to China.
The Southeast Asian country said Thursday it has barred Alice Huang, the businesswoman at the center of the scandal that led to the end of Jensen Huang’s tenure as Nvidia CEO, from re-entering the country.
A fifth person was handed a 41-count indictment on Friday in a Singapore fraud case involving computer servers that contained Nvidia chips and may have been exported to Malaysia. Prosecutors announced in March last year that suspicious transactions in the wide-ranging case totaled about $390 million.
The investigation into multiple companies and key officials, including Megaspeed International, began in February 2025 and continued as of Thursday.
The Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement late Thursday that authorities are investigating whether servers that did not enter the domestic market and were exported to Malaysia via Singapore were subsequently transferred to another destination, contrary to their declarations in Singapore.
Singapore faces increased international scrutiny, particularly from the United States, over its role as a major payment hub and potential transit hub for Nvidia chips that US authorities say are reaching China.
The United States has imposed restrictions on exports of Nvidia’s cutting-edge AI chips to China starting in 2022 in an effort to curb the Chinese government’s rapidly increasing AI development.
Nvidia’s revenue tied to Singapore will rise from 8% in 2023 to 22% in the fiscal quarter ending July 2025, with the country’s trade ministry estimating that chips physically delivered to Singapore account for less than 1% of the chipmaker’s revenue.
Is Singapore at a crossroads?
Experts say gaps in U.S. export control enforcement and Singapore’s corporate systems make it difficult to track where advanced Nvidia chips end up.
Nvidia chips can be legally sold to customers in other countries, such as Malaysia and Singapore, and then illegally resold or re-exported to China. Rather than buying the hardware directly, Chinese companies can also legally access cutting-edge AI chips hosted in data centers outside China remotely.
Chris McGuire, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former U.S. national security official, said Southeast Asia has become a “major hub for chip smuggling and export control evasion,” importing tens of billions of dollars worth of AI chips annually.
Since last year, Singapore has stepped up efforts to crack down on suspected chip diversions, including investigations into suspected fraud and money laundering.
Alvin Kamba, chief scientist and director of research at Lyvi, an Austin-based AI risk assessment firm, said regulators acknowledge there may be “blind spots between separate oversight of trade flows and bank flows.” He added that linking physical shipments and related financial transactions can be “difficult.”
“Singapore’s strong trade secrets regulations provide extensive protection to foreign investors, which can also make it difficult to quickly identify the true recipient of goods,” Mr Kamba said.
These challenges could be exploited to “obfuscate the flow of funds and potentially circumvent global restrictions on technology transfer,” he added, urging regulators to constantly adapt.
“Limited” US assistance
Singapore said it had received limited support from U.S. authorities during its year-long investigation.
Police asked for information about U.S. server supplier Super Microcomputer in connection with the investigation, but the company provided only limited cooperation, according to a statement Thursday.
The city-state first raised the issue with U.S. authorities in July 2025 and has repeated its request several times since September last year. “Despite these repeated requests, Singapore has so far received limited information and assistance regarding the company,” the ministry said.
In June 2025, police questioned Alice Huang, a Hong Kong resident who was MegaSpeed’s CEO, chairman, and key manager at the time.
In February 2026, authorities concluded that there was insufficient evidence that she had committed a crime in connection with the declaration under investigation. Despite this, she was found to have provided inaccurate information that downplayed her role in Megaspeed and was banned from re-entering Singapore.
The ministry said in a statement Thursday that the country does not enforce “unilateral export controls” imposed by other countries, but expects companies operating in the country to take foreign export controls into account in their international business operations.
In less than three years, MegaSpeed, a spinoff from a Chinese gaming company, has become Nvidia’s biggest customer in Southeast Asia, purchasing more than $4.8 billion worth of chips since June 2024, although the company denies wrongdoing, according to the New York Times.
Alice Huang, who US intelligence agencies identified as a Chinese intelligence operative who passed information to Beijing, served as Megaspeed’s executive director for eight months in 2023 and reportedly continues to play a leading role at the company.
Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia’s CEO on Thursday, ending 33 years at the helm after revelations of two extramarital affairs plunged the chipmaker at the center of the global AI boom into crisis.
Nvidia has appointed Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as interim CEO while its board searches for a permanent successor.
