Huang publicly rebukes Super Micro as Taiwan opens first AI chip smuggling case
A rare public scolding on the Taipei tarmac
Arriving at Songshan Airport on May 23, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang singled out his largest server-assembly partner, telling reporters that Super Micro Computer must "enhance and improve their regulation compliance and avoid that from happening in the future."tomshardware The comments came two days after Taiwan's Keelung District Prosecutors' Office executed search warrants at 12 locations and won court orders to detain three suspects accused of forging shipping paperwork to move Nvidia-equipped Supermicro servers into China, Hong Kong and Macau.techtimes It is unusual for Huang to publicly second-guess a partner — Nvidia is "rigorous" in walking partners through U.S. trade rules, he said, but "ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company."taipeitimes
Taiwan's first criminal case zeroes in on a Japan route
The Keelung raids netted roughly 50 Supermicro AI servers — valued at more than $15 million and packed with Nvidia Hopper-generation accelerators — and prosecutors say at least one earlier shipment had already reached Hong Kong via Japan, with mainland China the suspected final destination.cryptobriefing Investigators allege a two-layer concealment scheme: forged export declarations misrepresenting the destination, plus dummy server shells designed to fool customs inspectors.techtimes One of the three detainees is Supermicro co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw, a U.S. citizen who is also a defendant in a parallel American case; co-defendant Steven Chang remains a fugitive.techtimes
A separate-but-twinned U.S. prosecution looms larger
The Taiwan action is formally independent of the U.S. Department of Justice indictment unsealed in Manhattan on March 19, but the cases share defendants and a fact pattern.tomshardware Federal prosecutors allege Liaw, Chang and contractor Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun routed roughly $2.5 billion in Nvidia-equipped servers to China between 2024 and 2025 through a Southeast Asian shell company, moving more than $510 million of hardware in a matter of weeks in mid-2025.techtimes To dupe Supermicro's own compliance team, prosecutors say the group filled a warehouse with thousands of fake servers and used hair dryers to steam shipping labels off packages for reassembly.techtimes Each conspiracy count carries up to 20 years in prison; Liaw has pleaded not guilty, and Supermicro says it is not a defendant and has terminated all three named individuals.techtimes
China still on Huang's map, even as the chokepoint tightens
Huang used the same Taipei press scrum to confirm that China remains inside the $200 billion total addressable market he sketched for Nvidia's upcoming Vera CPU on the May 20 earnings call, and that the H200 has been licensed for sale to Chinese customers — though not a single unit has shipped.tomshardware Analysts had long flagged Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia as transshipment soft spots in U.S. export controls; under President Lai Ching-te, Taipei is now prosecuting fraud charges rather than relying on administrative restrictions, narrowing one of the grey market's most useful corridors just as Nvidia tries to thread a legal path back into the world's second-largest chip buyer.techtimes