Friday, January 31st 2025
US Investigates Possible "Singapore" Loophole in China's Access to NVIDIA GPUs
Today, Bloomberg reported that the US government under Trump administration is probing whether Chinese AI company DeepSeek circumvented export restrictions to acquire advanced NVIDIA GPUs through Singaporean intermediaries. The investigation follows concerns that DeepSeek's AI model, R1—reportedly rivaling leading systems from OpenAI and Google—may have been trained using restricted hardware that is blocked from exporting to China. Singapore's role in NVIDIA's global sales has surged, with the nation accounting for 22% of the chipmaker's revenue in Q3 FY2025, up from 9% in Q3 FY2023. This spike coincides with tightened US export controls on AI chips to China, prompting speculation that Singapore serves as a pipe for Chinese firms to access high-end GPUs like the H100, which cannot be sold directly to China.
DeepSeek has not disclosed hardware details for R1 but revealed its earlier V3 model was trained using 2,048 H800 GPUs (2.8 million GPU hours), achieving efficiency surpassing Meta's Llama 3, which required 30.8 million GPU hours. Analysts suggest R1's performance implies even more powerful infrastructure, potentially involving restricted chips. US authorities, including the White House and FBI, are examining whether third parties in Singapore facilitated the transfer of controlled GPUs to DeepSeek. A well-known semiconductor analyst firm, SemiAnalysis, believes that DeepSeek acquired around 50,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs, which includes a mix of H100, H800, and H20. NVIDIA clarified that its reported Singapore revenue reflects "bill to" customer locations, not final destinations, stating most products are routed to the US or Western markets.
The company emphasized compliance with export laws but acknowledged Singapore's significant growth in trade. Meanwhile, Howard Lutnick, a Trump nominee to lead the Commerce Department, accused DeepSeek of evading US restrictions during his confirmation hearing, pledging rigorous enforcement of chip sales limits if appointed. Authorities have yet to conclude investigations, leaving questions about Singapore's role unresolved.
Source:
via Tom's Hardware
DeepSeek has not disclosed hardware details for R1 but revealed its earlier V3 model was trained using 2,048 H800 GPUs (2.8 million GPU hours), achieving efficiency surpassing Meta's Llama 3, which required 30.8 million GPU hours. Analysts suggest R1's performance implies even more powerful infrastructure, potentially involving restricted chips. US authorities, including the White House and FBI, are examining whether third parties in Singapore facilitated the transfer of controlled GPUs to DeepSeek. A well-known semiconductor analyst firm, SemiAnalysis, believes that DeepSeek acquired around 50,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs, which includes a mix of H100, H800, and H20. NVIDIA clarified that its reported Singapore revenue reflects "bill to" customer locations, not final destinations, stating most products are routed to the US or Western markets.
36 Comments on US Investigates Possible "Singapore" Loophole in China's Access to NVIDIA GPUs
So far Ive only heard of this happening in some parts of the USA. Im not sure if the same happens elsewhere. Certain entities are willing to pay a lot of money for these chips.
:EDIT:
Adding some context
I also know that the Chinese government has circumvented nv's "D" performance nerf, a long time ago. I've also heard that card assemblers in or near China deliberately marks good chips as defective and then sells them to the government.
I would like to see nv fined hundreds of Billions, and an executive thrown in prison for it. Scream away.
This has been happening for quite some time and it's well known the cards are not working and for parts only.
You only have to check listings on Ebay to find many of them, usually sold via Hong Kong suppliers.
The same people buying these assuming they work, are the ones that see a listing for BOX only and think they are buying the actual item that usually comes inside it.
Read the listings folks, it's not that hard.
I know someone who got banned just for saying "nGr**dia" in a casual way, no crap posting, and relevant to the thread, just banned dude, so no.Yeah, you convince yourself of that. I couldn't care less.
Off course they are buying whole ships with nVidia hardware and then resell it to the Chinese Corporations, it's mind blowing that only about now they figure it out this maneuver. And it's not only Singapore. Malaysia, Hong-Kong and Even Taiwan are doing the exact same thing. This was happening right from the day 2. Did the US Congress really thought they could stop this from happening? Hilarious.
www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/13/usa.pakistanWhat's more hilarious is that so many people still think the US wants to stop the sale of these GPUs to China :laugh:
Plutonium was indeed a bad example, as while it is highly toxic, a lot more sensitive things are needed first to be able to produce a thermonuclear weapon. I should probably have said nuclear detonators or highly enriched uranium (?). I guess if you try to procure those, you may not get them but you will be lodged and fed for some time.
As for GPUs, the aim is not to prevent, but to make it harder and costlier. But that is failing to allow the chinese to compete in the AI race.
DeepSeek is open-source and can be run locally. Anyone anywhere else in the world can run DeepSeek on 5090s without worrying about the sanctions in China. NVIDIA claiming the performance edge doesn't mean they are condoning bypassing sanctions. I'm sure NVIDIA doesn't love the sanctions, but they have so much demand that it probably doesn't matter to them. But I don't think NVIDIA is openly teasing or supporting bypassing sanctions.