3 Men Charged With Conspiring to Smuggle US Artificial Intelligence to China

Three men have been charged with conspiring to smuggle billions of dollars’ worth of US-built servers containing Nvidia chips to China, according to the indictment in Manhattan federal court. The charges, reported by SecurityWeek from an Associated Press article, allege that between 2024 and 2025 the defendants violated US export controls by diverting high-performance servers assembled in the United States.

Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw, 71, a senior vice president and board member of Super Micro Computer, and Ting-Wei “Willy” Sun, 44, a company contractor, were arrested in California, while Ruei-Tsang “Steven” Chang, a sales manager for the company in Taiwan, remains a fugitive; Liaw was released on bail and Sun was held for a bail hearing.

The indictment claims orders worth $2.5 billion were directed to a Southeast Asia-based company to procure the servers, with at least $510 million diverted to China after assembly in the United States. SecurityWeek notes that Nvidia’s AI chips are central to data centres powering artificial intelligence, a factor in the US–China competition over AI technology. The company has said it is cooperating with the investigation, while Nvidia emphasised strict compliance and ongoing enforcement.