NVIDIA has cut more than half of its customers in Asia who are allowed to buy its artificial intelligence (AI) chips after introducing a whitelist and stricter compliance checks, according to a Financial Times report. The additional checks have been carried out on Malaysia, Singapore and Japan in recent months.
More than half of its previous customers failed initial checks, mainly neocloud service providers. As a result, they were removed from the list but were allowed to reapply after making changes to their compliance requirements.
NVIDIA took the step in an effort to comply with US administrative requirements that prevent the latest AI chips from being sold to entities in China via third countries. In a major case last year, NVIDIA chips were smuggled into China via Singapore and Malaysia, leading to several individuals being prosecuted.
Malaysia, embroiled in this smuggling scandal, has continued to introduce special permits for the export and transit of AI chips under the jurisdiction of MITI.
