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,

Organised AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of countries including Malaysia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, the source said. The Commerce Department and DeepSeek did not immediately return requests for comment.

Nvidia on Monday said Chinese AI firm DeepSeek's advances show the usefulness of its chips for the Chinese market and that more of its chips will be needed in the future to meet demand for DeepSeek's services.