The news of the arrests in Singapore comes just one month after officials in the US announced they were specifically probing whether DeepSeek was working with third parties in Singapore to get its hands on Nvidia chips. If the reports are to be believed, it appears they may have found their answer.

Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case domestic media have linked to the movement of Nvidia's advanced chips from the city state to Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek.

The case raises concerns over AI chip smuggling, while Microsoft warns restrictions designed to prevent it could backfire, benefiting China.