US officials are deep into an investigation to find out if Chinese AI startup DeepSeek found a backdoor route to Nvidia’s high-end chips through Singapore, evading American export bans.

Several experts, including Elon Musk and Howard Lutnick, nominated to head the US Commerce Department, recently suggested that DeepSeek had found ways to avoid US sanctions. Analysts suspect that Deep

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.

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,

Two US lawmakers are urging tighter export controls on Nvidia's AI chips, fearing China's growing AI capabilities. Their concerns stem from reports that a Chinese firm used these chips — currently outside the scope of U.