China’s acquisition of advanced Nvidia chips has come under intense scrutiny, despite the presence of stringent U.S. export controls. It has been reported that Chinese buyers have already placed orders for Nvidia’s high-performance Blackwell GPUs, in spite of these controls, and despite the export restrictions.

On Thursday, authorities in Singapore made arrests of three individuals, allegedly involved in the smuggling of Nvidia chips, according to Channel News Asia. The accused, comprising two Singaporeans and one Chinese national, were charged with fraud in connection with a server supply.

The investigation in Singapore is focused on determining whether the servers in question, manufactured by Dell and Supermicro, contained restricted Nvidia chips and were diverted to a destination other than their intended recipient in Malaysia, as reported by Bloomberg.

Nvidia’s most recent annual report reveals that the company does engage in sales to Singapore, with the country accounting for 18% of revenue in the fiscal year 2025, although actual shipments to Singapore comprised less than 2% of total sales.

In a statement to TechCrunch, Dell emphasized its commitment to a strict trade compliance program and its practice of investigating any customers that fail to comply with regulations. Nvidia declined to provide a comment, while Supermicro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.