Nvidia’s CEO probe and Singapore ties: Will future chip orders suffer?

AI Summary

Nvidia is reportedly investigating whether CEO Jensen Huang was targeted in alleged foreign spying connected to a Singapore-based company and suspected efforts to evade US export controls on AI chips. The article highlights Singapore’s importance as a revenue-billing hub, while noting that most chips billed there are shipped to customers elsewhere and that investigations into potential diversion to China are ongoing.

SINGAPORE: Nvidia, which is powering the global artificial intelligence revolution with the chips it makes, is investigating if its chief executive officer, Jensen Huang, was the target of foreign spying. This comes after media reports in October alleged that the Taiwan-born technology maverick had a close relationship with a Chinese businesswoman who passed information to Beijing. The woman, Alice Huang, is a former executive of Singapore-based cloud computing firm Megaspeed International. She is reportedly being monitored by the United States authorities, which suspects she was helping China evade limits on its ability to access advanced AI chips. Singapore has traditionally been among Nvidia’s top four markets in billable revenue. How close are Nvidia’s ties to Singapore? The Straits Times answers this and more. How important is Singapore to Nvidia’s business? Nvidia’s financial reports over the past three years revealed that Singapore was among its top global markets by revenue. But no Singapore revenue breakdown has been given since the middle of 2025. Singapore accounted for 22 per cent of Nvidia’s total revenue at close to US$10.2 billion for the quarter that ended on July 27, 2025. It was the most recent and last known quarterly revenue breakdown for Singapore. The US is Nvidia’s largest market, accounting for about 50pc of total revenue at around US$23.5 billion in that quarter. In the financial year that ended on Jan 26, 2025, Singapore was also the No. 2 contributor to Nvidia’s total revenue, accounting for 18pc of it at nearly US$23.7 billion. The US contributed 47pc of total revenue at almost US$61.3 billion. Why is a small country like Singapore buying so many AI chips? Nvidia had explained that customers used Singapore to “centralise invoicing”, while its products were almost always shipped elsewhere. For instance, for the quarter that ended on July 27, 2025, over 99pc of Nvidia’s revenue billed to Singapore from selling export-controlled data centre products, including AI chips, was for orders from US-based customers. Earlier in January 2025, it was reported that the US was investigating if Chinese AI firm DeepSeek got Nvidia AI chips through countries such as Singapore. In February 2025, the then-Ministry of Trade and Industry responded to these allegations, citing Nvidia as saying many of its customers “use their business entities in Singapore to purchase chips for products destined for the US and other Western countries”. “We expect US companies, like Nvidia, to comply with US export controls and our domestic legislation,” the ministry said, adding that Singapore would act decisively and firmly against individuals and companies that flout the rules. Nvidia had also stated that there was no reason to believe that DeepSeek obtained any export-controlled products from Singapore. In October 2025, it was reported that the US was investigating whether Singapore’s Megaspeed was involved in helping Chinese tech firms sidestep US export controls to obtain restricted Nvidia AI chips. What ties and partnerships does Nvidia have in Singapore? Nvidia has many business and research dealings with organisations in Singapore. In March 2026, Singtel unit NCS said it was integrating NCS’ AI platforms with Nvidia’s AI enterprise software so highly regulated organisations can deploy AI agents — bots which can take actions with minimal human supervision — with the necessary safeguards. These include ensuring that sensitive operational data is protected. The US tech firm said in September 2026 that Sea — which owns e-commerce platform Shopee, financial services arm Monee and gaming platform Garena — was adopting an Nvidia platform to scale the use of AI across its platforms. Sea has used AI to let sellers create product listings, boost fraud detection and build in-game companions that respond to players in real time. The US tech giant has tie-ups with the Singapore Government as well. In September, Singapore’s Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) said it was the first organisation in the country to deploy Nvidia’s latest GB300 chip. The GB300 chips provide massive computing power so HTX can train much smarter AI to process text, video and audio at once and control robots at scale without fear of security being compromised. This builds on HTX’s earlier partnership with Nvidia. Many institutes of higher learning here work with Nvidia on research. In March 2026, the Singapore University of Technology and Design worked with Nvidia and other partners to show how robots and autonomous vehicles can distribute their “thinking” across the device and the cloud. The Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and Nvidia jointly established in 2024 a research centre called the SIT x Nvidia AI Centre that has allowed businesses from manufacturing and transport to healthcare sectors develop and test solutions using AI. The centre also launched a new training initiative in October 2025 to help fresh graduates and mid-car