The Trump administration remains split between trade officials pushing for looser rules and national security hawks seeking to close pathways Beijing uses to access advanced artificial intelligence hardware. Scrutiny has increased because Cantor Fitzgerald, now run by Howard Lutnick's sons, recently handled an equity offering of up to $1 billion for Singapore-based data center firm Bitdeer. Oversight concerns have grown further amid an investigation into regional operator Megaspeed, whose leader was deemed a Chinese intelligence asset by the U.S. government. The Commerce Department maintains that these family business ties have not influenced any official policy determinations.
Key points
Disagreements between Commerce Department leadership and administration hawks highlight o…: Disagreements between Commerce Department leadership and administration hawks highlight ongoing tensions over closing export loopholes benefiting Chinese tech firms.
Howard Lutnick transferred control of Cantor Fitzgerald to his sons, but his policy stanc…: Howard Lutnick transferred control of Cantor Fitzgerald to his sons, but his policy stance continues to draw ethics scrutiny from lawmakers.
The Commerce Department maintains that no formal ethics rules were violated and denies th…: The Commerce Department maintains that no formal ethics rules were violated and denies that outside business relationships shaped trade policy.
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Lutnick Pushed to Weaken Chip Rules That Overlap With His Family Business
The commerce secretary has been writing new rules that would affect Southeast Asian data centers, some of which are clients of his former firm.
In Malaysia’s lush southern peninsula, a data center known as A201 is set to open next year, packed with hundreds of millions of dollars in Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence servers.
The data center plans to supply this computing power to a Chinese tech giant. The setup is legal and profitable. It will also sidestep U.S. rules that ban sales of the most advanced A.I. chips directly to Chinese firms.
The company operating the data center is a client of Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial services firm formerly led by Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, who handed off leadership of it to his sons. Mr. Lutnick is now writing the rules that would have a substantial effect on the data center’s business.
Mr. Lutnick has been seen as a force slowing rules that would clamp down on the sale of Nvidia chips to…
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