NationThailand-July 14
The United States is reportedly preparing to tighten restrictions on exports of high-performance AI chips from leading firms such as Nvidia to Malaysia and Thailand. The move aims to prevent these chips from being rerouted to China, raising concerns among businesses and industries in the region, particularly over data center investments and AI deployment, both of which rely heavily on advanced chips. Kriangkrai Thiennukul, chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), said the latest US actions stem from an ongoing trade war that began under President Donald Trump 1.0 and has continued into the administration of President Joe Biden. He noted that the core objective of the US export restrictions is to block the transfer of advanced technologies and high-performance chips to adversarial nations, such as North Korea, Iran and especially China. Washington’s Chips and Science Act was introduced specifically to support this goal, and these measures have intensified under the “Make America Great Again” doctrine. The latest clampdown reportedly follows heightened scrutiny by US authorities into how China-based open-source AI platforms — such as DeepSeek — continue to operate using Nvidia chips, despite the ban. Investigations suggested that the chips may have leaked through third countries that originally imported them from the US. “The US knows that Thailand and Malaysia import a large volume of advanced technologies, which is why additional monitoring and controls have been introduced,” Kriangkrai said. “This is similar to US efforts to curb transshipment and tariff circumvention. But in this case, the focus is on export controls directly from the US.” Kriangkrai added that the proposed US restrictions would not affect data center operations, as they are unrelated to the transshipment issue. Even large-scale IT investments, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), which has committed hundreds of billions of baht to long-term data infrastructure in Thailand, remain unaffected. “As long as imported chips are genuinely used domestically, there is no problem. The issue arises only when imports are used as a pass-through for other destinations,” he said. He emphasized that the United States has the capability to detect such practices and is enforcing these measures with increased rigor, both on imports and exports. “Trump 2.0’s policy is more aggressive and aims to close every loophole that has long been exploited,” Kriangkrai noted. Read more at:
