US officials are probing whether Chinese AI startup DeepSeek bought advanced Nvidia Corp. semiconductors through third parties in Singapore, circumventing US restrictions on sales of chips used for artificial intelligence tasks,

Export controls need to be tightened after revelations the Chinese company used Nvidia technology, the leaders of a congressional committee said.

DeepSeek- which is backed by Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer- had said in July 2022 that it owned and operated a cluster of 10,000 A100 Nvidia chips, which are a less advanced version of Nvidia’s AI chips, developed specifically for China. The chips are also compliant with U.S. export restrictions.