Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit
ElProlactin | on: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's letter to staff about affair
> ...and then the MSS got involved for access and blackmail.

If you look at Megaspeed, it has Chinese state asset written all over it.

thenthenthen | parent
How
ElProlactin | root | parent
1. Singapore is a well-known hub for the smuggling of Nvidia chips to China.

2. The company was originally set up as the subsidiary of a Chinese gaming company.

3. When the US added stricter export controls for Nvidia chips in 2023, it was spun off and ownership reportedly moved to a BVI shell company.

4. Later it was sold to a company that is apparently owned by one person who is believed to live in China.

5. The Singapore offices of the company and others he is an owner or director of show little activity and according to one report, the co-working space at the address listed for one didn't even have a record of the company.

6. Despite the fact that Megaspeed showed less than $6 million in cash at the end of 2023, it somehow became an Nvidia Cloud Partner and between 2024 and 2026 purchased $4.8 billion worth of advanced Nvidia chips, making it the top Nvidia chip buyer in ASEAN.

This company was on the radar of people in the industry well before this scandal because basically nobody had any idea who it was and where the money was coming from.

https://en.thairath.co.th/money/tech_innovation/tech_compani...

thenthenthen | root | parent | next
Thanks for the extensive write up! Every point except 6 (the acquisition) sounds very normal for Chinese companies. 6 million is worth a lot more in the Mainland, not many AI chips tho… mmmm
ElProlactin | root | parent
I actually live in Asia and have done business in the region for years.

Very "normal" for what? None of this is "normal" for a legitimate company supposedly running a neocloud business on $4+ billion worth of Nvidia chips.

Singapore-based companies with this type of footprint run by Chinese nationals are almost always fronts for shady stuff.

thenthenthen | root | parent
I also live in asia, and many bosses have like 10-20 companies all sorta feeding of each other in the most complex and strange ways. One day I was stepping into the office, and it was just stripped to the ground. “Oh yeah, we moved”… I am not surprised by anything anymore.
ElProlactin | root | parent | next
Legitimate companies don't have a collection of offshore shells, offices that keep moving, etc. Tax avoidance is real, but if you're seeing dozens of shells trading with each other in ways that don't make any sense, offices moving overnight, you should consider that you're not seeing companies that are on the up and up.

I don't know what sort of work you do/what industry you're in, but that's not how legitimate business operates in the region.

thenthenthen | root | parent
I dunno, they kinda do? Involution
| root | parent
{"deleted":true,"id":50428914,"parent":50428768,"time":1794246719,"type":"comment"}
alt227 | root | parent
> This company was on the radar of people in the industry well before this scandal because basically nobody had any idea who it was and where the money was coming from.

Yet still they sold them the chips. Shows just how much Nvidia care about the restrictions placed on their clients.