Prosecutors in Taiwan charged nine people — including a manager with tech giant Nvidia and two Super Micro employees — for allegedly illegally exporting high-end artificial intelligence servers to China.
According to The Wall Street Journal, 74 AI servers from Super Micro were successfully shipped to China, 50 of which were routed through Indonesia, another eight were sent to Japan first, and 16 were delivered directly to China. Each server reportedly contained a Nvidia graphics processing unit known as the B300, which is banned from being sold to Chinese buyers.
Charges filed by prosecutors included breach of trust and forgery, while one person was accused of illegally siphoning funds from a company involved in the case. A Super Micro employee also allegedly leaked the company's internal vetting procedures, and asked a Nvidia employee to help secure server quotas.
Taiwan's export controls require that any sale of Nvidia's high-end AI servers come with a strict review process, while the U.S. has sought to block China's access to Nvidia's chips. Any purchase of more than eight high-end AI servers also requires company staff to conduct on-site checks with clients. Court documents allege that the defendants created fake websites and falsified information to get around those export restrictions.
Both Nvidia and Super Micro said that they are cooperating with authorities as part of the investigation. Neither company is a direct target of the probe from prosecutors.
