Nvidia, Supermicro Staff Charged Over China Chip Smuggling
Nvidia, Supermicro Staff Charged Over China Chip Smuggling
The News
Taiwanese prosecutors have indicted nine people — including an employee of Nvidia's Taiwan unit and two employees of Super Micro Computer's Taiwan unit — over the illegal export of high-end AI servers to mainland China.
Prosecutors in the port city of Keelung announced the charges in a statement on Monday. Eight defendants were charged with breach of trust and document forgery; three were charged with embezzlement.
The servers contained graphics processing units known as B300s, whose sale to China is banned under US export controls, prosecutors said.
Timeline
Washington began restricting exports of Nvidia's advanced chips to China in 2022 and tightened the rules in later years, according to the Associated Press.
In April 2025, the US required licenses for exports of Nvidia's H20 chips to China, before allowing some sales to resume later that year.
According to the Keelung District Prosecutors Office, 74 servers made it to China: 50 were transshipped through Indonesia, 16 went directly to China, and eight were routed first through Japan and then Hong Kong. A further attempt involving 56 servers failed, and those servers remain in Taiwan.
Prosecutors said some of the defendants set up a company in Japan that helped move eight of the servers, and that some built fake websites and falsified information to evade export restrictions.
On Monday, August 24, 2026, the nine were indicted.
Reactions
Nvidia said its employees have "every incentive to work diligently with customers to ensure compliance with all applicable laws." Company spokesman Patrick Rutherford said in a written statement: "We will work with the Taiwan authorities to help them resolve the allegations as quickly as possible."
Super Micro said its own cooperation with Taiwanese authorities led to the arrests, including of two former employees of its Taiwan subsidiary. "The Company continues to cooperate with Taiwan authorities, is not a target of their investigation and has not been accused of any wrongdoing," it said, adding that it would keep strengthening its export compliance program "to protect American innovation."
Prosecutors said the defendants were "driven by the pursuit of exorbitant profits" to collude in the illegal exports, which "not only increased corporate compliance costs but also severely damaged the nation's international image."
What's Next
Prosecutors are seeking the maximum five-year sentences for four of the nine defendants, the AP reported, among them an Nvidia manager identified only by his surname, Chang. The prosecutors' document called Chang the "key figure" responsible for "authorizing the release of the B300 GPUs" and said he "demonstrated a clearly deficient attitude after the crime."
Al Jazeera reported that prosecutors are seeking sentences of up to five years for seven defendants, and more lenient sentences for the two who confessed to all charges and cooperated with the investigation.
More
Taiwan is the world's largest producer of the advanced chips used in AI systems, and AI infrastructure has become a central front in the technology rivalry between the United States and China.
Violating US export controls is not itself a criminal offense in Taiwan — a gap that lawmakers and experts say needs to change, leaving prosecutors to rely on other laws such as forgery and breach of trust to pursue cases. Taiwan has tightened its own export controls in recent years to keep advanced technology from reaching China, which claims the island as its own territory over the strong objections of its government.
Under the export controls, any Nvidia sale of high-end AI servers requires a strict review process, and purchases of more than eight such servers require company staff to carry out on-site checks of the customer, according to the Keelung prosecutors' document.
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