China’s great AI chip loophole: How American espionage stopped China — this time

China may have discovered a remarkably effective way around America’s restrictions on advanced artificial intelligence chips: obtain the processors through ostensibly legitimate companies in Singapore and Malaysia, exploit weaknesses in American export enforcement, and use personal relationships to influence the leadership of the world’s most important AI chipmaker. The unfolding Nvidia scandal raises the possibility that an elaborate Chinese intelligence operation came dangerously close to succeeding. Indeed, some of the technology may already have reached Chinese customers. Congress and the CIA will have to establish how much China got away with and who helped them defeat America. A SPY TOOK…