Taiwanese prosecutors have charged nine people with illegally exporting AI servers to China. Among them are an Nvidia Taiwan employee and two Supermicro Taiwan employees. The case involves 130 ordered B300 servers, 74 of which actually arrived in China.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office in the port city of Keelung announced Monday that eight suspects are being prosecuted for breach of trust and forgery. A ninth suspect is being charged in a related case involving the alleged embezzlement of funds from a distributor involved in the scheme. Prosecutors have not released the suspects’ full names.
According to prosecutors, the scheme was relatively simple. On paper, 130 B300 servers ordered from Supermicro were supposed to be installed in a rented data center in Taiwan. The end-user documents intended to confirm this were forged.
In reality, 74 of those systems went to Chinese customers, partly via direct shipments and partly via detours through Indonesia, Japan, and Hong Kong. The remaining 56 servers were slated to go to a company in Japan, but Taiwanese customs officials noticed irregularities and intercepted the shipment.
Suspects knew the rules
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the suspects were “fully aware” of the internal control procedures that both Nvidia and Supermicro follow regarding exports. Nevertheless, they collaborated at various levels to generate substantial profits, prosecutors said, which they argue drives up companies’ compliance costs and damages Taiwan’s international image.
Nvidia states that its employees have every interest in working with customers to ensure compliance with applicable laws. The company says it is helping Taiwanese authorities resolve the allegations as quickly as possible. Supermicro asserts that its own cooperation with the investigation actually led to the arrests. The company claims it is not a target of the investigation and has not been charged with anything.
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