Police have been investigating the alleged Nvidia chip diversion through Malaysia since April 2025, Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said on Saturday (Nov 14), looking into whether the country was used to get around US export restrictions on the company’s artificial intelligence chips.
Speaking to reporters in Perak, he said the probe was opened as soon as the US raised allegations of illicit procurement and diversion of high-performance AI chips through Malaysia, including claims that proxy companies had been set up in the country or that it had been used as a transit point.
The investigation is being carried out under the Strategic Trade Act 2010, with the Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) as the lead agency, he said. Bank Negara Malaysia, the Inland Revenue Board, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission and the Customs Department are also involved.
Saifuddin described the case as very complex, with several layers of investigation, and declined to say whether investigators had found evidence to support the allegations. He said police had been updating Miti on their progress so that the ministry could pass the findings on to the US authorities, which had lodged the complaint through it.
He was responding to a question on whether Malaysia had been affected by the leadership uncertainty at Nvidia, whose chief executive Jensen Huang resigned on Nov 12, with chief financial officer Colette Kress named interim chief.
Separately, the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) said a land lease sought by Speedmatrix Sdn Bhd would not go ahead. PKFZ chairman Lim Lip Eng said the company applied in July to lease a plot of land in the zone but did not sign the letter of offer within its validity period, and the offer expired early this month. PKFZ formally told the company on Friday (Nov 13) that the offer had lapsed.
Lim said the letter of offer had included an express ban on exporting computer chips without prior approval from the relevant authorities, and that PKFZ used due diligence, risk assessments and company background checks to stop the free zone from being used for unlawful activities.
Speedmatrix is the Malaysian unit of Singapore-based Megaspeed International, which foreign media reports have linked to the movement of Nvidia chips that may have been meant for China. Megaspeed has denied illegally diverting chips to China.
On Friday, Miti said it had never cleared either company. It said Speedmatrix, a tenant at data centres in Malaysia, had brought its own servers and AI chips into the country, which does not currently require a permit, and that the ministry was working with Customs to check whether any of the chips had been re-exported.
Since July 2025, exporting, re-exporting, transhipping or moving high-performance US AI chips through Malaysia has required a Miti permit under the Strategic Trade Act. The ministry has said Malaysia welcomes data centre investment but will not allow itself to be used to get around export controls, and that stern action will be taken against any company found to have broken Malaysian law.