The US Commerce Department is developing chip-export rules that would block Chinese customers’ remote access to powerful Nvidia processors in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. The Wall Street Journal reported the plans on November 14, 2026, citing people familiar with the matter. Source
Former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang built a network of Asian partners serving Chinese customers through overseas data centers and lobbied Washington to keep that access open, the investigation found. Source
The chips stay abroad. Customers rent the power.
Chinese companies can rent computing power from data centers abroad without importing the restricted processors into China. The Journal describes these overseas rentals as a legal alternative to smuggling. Source
The Trump administration widened that opening in May 2025 by revoking a Biden administration plan to limit chip imports by Southeast Asian and other countries, according to the report. Eighteen months later, the promised replacement curbs still hadn’t arrived. Source
With investors’ help, Nvidia cloud partner Aolani funded about $2.5 billion in Malaysian hardware by early 2026, the Journal reported. Its anchor customer: TikTok parent ByteDance. Aolani said it has systems to comply strictly with US regulations and has sought a global customer base from the start. Source
Nvidia argues that keeping customers on American technology beats handing the market to foreign competitors. “America cannot win the AI race unless America’s AI infrastructure wins worldwide,” a company representative told the Journal. Source
The rules would require licenses to export powerful processors, including Nvidia’s Blackwell series, to the three countries, according to the Journal’s sources. Those licenses would prohibit Chinese customers’ remote access. Source
Megaspeed’s nearly $12 billion in chip orders
Separately, records reviewed by the Journal show that Megaspeed, a Singapore-based Nvidia cloud partner, arranged to send nearly $12 billion worth of advanced Nvidia chips to companies in China between March 2024 and June 2025. How much of that hardware actually arrived? The records don’t establish that, or where it originated.
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