Lutnick Pushed Narrower Chip Rule Sparing Cantor-Linked Bitdeer

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick backed a scaled-back chip-control rule that would apply to just seven countries, according to a New York Times investigation: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa and Norway. The narrower version would cover only future shipments and require notification, not an automatic license, when Chinese customers use overseas data centers to train AI models.

One of the sites that would be spared is A201, a data center Singapore-based Bitdeer is building in southern Malaysia. The Times reports it is set to open next year "packed with hundreds of millions of dollars in Nvidia's most advanced artificial intelligence servers" and is expected to provide computing power to Tencent, the Chinese internet giant. Bitdeer expects the facility to generate $1.7 billion in revenue over five years.

Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment firm Lutnick led for more than three decades before joining the Trump administration and now run by his sons, served as a designated sales agent for an equity offering of up to $1 billion by Bitdeer this year, after arranging a stock offering of up to $250 million in 2024. Cantor also holds a stake in Bitdeer through its investment in the crypto company Tether.

The Times says it "found no evidence that Cantor's business dealings influenced Lutnick's policy decisions," and ethics officials say he has followed the rules. Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona called the arrangement "shady" and wants Lutnick, his sons and former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to testify under oath.

The disclosure lands the same day Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent demanded an outside Nvidia CEO and amid reporting that Jensen Huang personally built the Asia route feeding Nvidia GPUs toward China.