Singapore Delays Trial in Nvidia AI Chip Smuggling Case Tied to China

Singapore’s fraud case involving the alleged illegal transfer of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) AI chips to China has been adjourned to August 22, as prosecutors request more time for document review and overseas inquiries. The case centers on three men—Singaporeans Aaron Woon Guo Jie, 41, and Alan Wei Zhaolun, 49, along with Chinese national Li Ming, 51—accused of making false declarations to server suppliers about the end users of technology goods purchased between 2023 and 2024.

Local media have linked the case to the covert shipment of Nvidia’s high-performance chips to Chinese AI firm DeepSeek, which U.S. officials allege supports China’s military and intelligence sectors. The U.S. banned exports of advanced Nvidia chips to China in 2022 over national security concerns.

Singapore’s Minister for Home Affairs K. Shanmugam previously confirmed that the servers in question may have contained Nvidia GPUs and that authorities acted on an anonymous tip to launch an independent investigation. The hardware was reportedly supplied by Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) and Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ:SMCI) to Singapore-based companies and later routed to Malaysia, although it remains unclear if that was the final destination.

The case is part of a wider probe involving 22 individuals and companies suspected of misrepresenting technology exports, fueling concerns over organized smuggling of U.S.-origin AI chips to China through intermediary countries like Singapore.

Despite being Nvidia’s second-largest market after the U.S. in 2024, Singapore accounted for only around 2% of the company’s actual revenue, with the city-state primarily serving as an invoicing hub for broader Asia-Pacific sales.