Nine charged in Taiwan chip smuggling case
Taipei, TAIWAN—Nine people in Taiwan, including a Nvidia worker, were charged on Monday over the illegal export of artificial intelligence (AI) servers to China, Taiwanese prosecutors said.
The indictments follow an investigation into the shipment of “high-end” AI servers made by Nasdaq-listed Super Micro Computer and containing advanced Nvidia chips to China in violation of US export controls.
Eight of the nine defendants were charged with breach of trust and forging documents to smuggle 74 servers containing Nvidia chips to China, Keelung District Prosecutors Office said in a statement.
US bans exports to China
Of those servers, 50 were transshipped through Indonesia, eight were sent via Japan and the rest were exported directly to China. An additional 56 servers were seized at Taiwan’s border, the statement said.
Three of the defendants have been charged with embezzlement.
The United States restricts exports to China of the most cutting-edge silicon chips used to power AI systems, designed by industry leader Nvidia.
But it is not a criminal offense in Taiwan—a situation lawmakers and experts say needs to change—with Taiwanese prosecutors relying on other laws to go after offenders.
The nine accused include two employees from Super Micro and one from Nvidia as well as one from Taiwan-listed Albatron Technology and another from Chief Telecom, prosecutors said.
Five years
Neither Nvidia nor Super Micro immediately responded to AFP’s request for comment.
Prosecutors said they were seeking sentences of up to five years in jail for seven defendants who were “driven by the pursuit of exorbitant profits” to collude in the illegal export of the servers.
