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.

China's DeepSeek last week launched a free assistant it says uses less data at a fraction of the cost of U.S. models. Within days, it became the most downloaded app in Apple's App Store and stirred concerns about United States' lead in AI,

OpenAI says it has uncovered evidence that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek used its proprietary models to train a competing open-source

Nvidia’s AI leadership remains intact, despite DeepSeek concerns. Read why NVDA stock’s steep drop represents a great opportunity for long-term investors.

This story incorporates reporting from The Motley Fool, scmp.com and MSN.The rise of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has caused ripples across the technology sector by exposing potential weaknesses in Nvidia’s market dominance.