Ting-Wei 'Willy' Sun은 Super Micro 서버를 중국으로 밀반출한 혐의로 기소된 3명 중 한 명으로, 고급 Nvidia AI 칩이 탑재된 서버였습니다. 그는 유죄를 인정했습니다.
Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun, a third-party broker and "fixer" charged alongside Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw and sales manager Ruei-Tsang "Steven" Chang with conspiring to unlawfully divert Nvidia AI chips to China, has pleaded guilty to the allegations against him. According to Bloomberg, Sun's plea is part of an agreement with prosecutors, although the details of any possible cooperation arrangement remain undisclosed. Sun is expected to be sentenced on Sept. 8, 2027.
The case came to light earlier this year after investigators discovered that the three had diverted Super Micro servers containing Nvidia chips to China. They allegedly sent the servers to a Southeast Asian company, which faked the paperwork and created dummy servers for inspectors. Workers then used hair dryers to remove the serial numbers from the real servers and transfer them to the dummy server shells to complete the illusion, while the real servers made their way to China. Further investigation revealed that the three used a Thailand-based corporation to receive the servers, which were then delivered to Alibaba, even though the Chinese tech giant denied receiving the banned Nvidia hardware.
Super Micro has denied any knowledge of the operation, even as it has generated $2.5 billion in sales since it began in 2024. Nevertheless, the company's shareholders have sued it, accusing it of concealing its dependence on illicit sales to China. Liaw has pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on a $5 million bond. He is set to go to trial on Nov. 2, while the third co-conspirator, Chang, remains a fugitive.
Taiwanese authorities are also building their own case against the illegal shipment of AI chips to China. Investigators raided some Super Micro offices and the homes of six individuals. The company denied that its premises were raided, saying it cooperated with the police and provided access to the workstations and devices of the employees under investigation. It also said it has been collaborating with U.S. and Taiwanese authorities on the smuggling investigation and has fired several employees following its own independent investigation. Shortly afterward, Taiwan indicted nine more people involved in the illegal smuggling of Nvidia B300 GPUs.
Sun's guilty plea is the latest development in the U.S. crackdown on illegal AI chip exports, which followed another tech CEO's arrest in California for allegedly smuggling $300 million in Nvidia AI servers to China. These cases show how seriously the White House is taking the protection of its hardware advantage over Beijing in the AI race, even as AI development faces its own challenges at home.