한 슈퍼마이크로(Super Micro)와 연계된 중개업체가 엔비디아 AI 칩을 중국으로 밀반입한 계획과 관련해 유죄를 인정했다.

Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun entered a guilty plea Tuesday in federal court, pursuant to an agreement with prosecutors. He is the first conviction in a case that has ensnared a Super Micro co-founder and prompted raids across Taiwan. Sentencing is set for Sept. 8, 2027. Details of any cooperation arrangement remain sealed.

Sun, a third-party broker, was charged alongside Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw and sales manager Ruei-Tsang "Steven" Chang. Prosecutors allege the trio diverted Super Micro servers containing Nvidia chips to a Southeast Asian company that falsified paperwork and built dummy server shells for inspectors. Workers used hair dryers to remove serial numbers from the real servers, transferred those numbers to the dummy units, and then shipped the actual hardware to China.

According to court filings, a Thailand-based corporation received the servers and delivered them to Alibaba. The Chinese tech giant has denied receiving the banned hardware.

Super Micro has denied knowledge of the operation. The company reported $2.5 billion in sales since the scheme began in 2024. Shareholders have sued, accusing the company of concealing its reliance on illicit China sales.

Liaw pleaded not guilty and was released on a $5 million bond. His trial is scheduled for Nov. 2. Chang remains a fugitive.

Taiwanese authorities have opened a parallel investigation. Investigators raided Super Micro offices and the homes of six individuals this year. The company denied that its premises were raided, saying it cooperated with police and provided access to employee workstations. Super Micro said it fired several employees after an internal investigation and has been working with both U.S. and Taiwanese authorities. Taiwan prosecutors recently indicted nine additional people for smuggling Nvidia B300 GPUs.

The case forms part of a broader U.S. crackdown on illegal AI chip exports to China. Earlier this year, federal agents arrested a California tech CEO for allegedly smuggling $300 million worth of Nvidia AI servers to Chinese buyers. The enforcement push reflects Washington's determination to preserve its hardware advantage in the AI race against Beijing.