Taiwan prosecutors investigate 3 people over Nvidia chip smuggling to China

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TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Authorities in Taiwan are investigating three people on suspicion of using forged documents to smuggle computer servers containing advanced Nvidia chips to China, prosecutors said Thursday.

The high-performance AI servers were made by the San Jose, California-based Super Micro Computer Inc. The three people are accused of conspiring to purchase the servers in Taiwan, then use the false documents for export declarations to smuggle the servers to China, Taiwan’s Keelung District Prosecutors Office said in a statement.

Prosecutors did not identify the three people. Nvidia and Super Micro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While the suspects were aware of U.S. export restrictions that blocked such exports to mainland China, Macao and Hong Kong, they went ahead anyway for “huge profits,” the prosecutors' statement said.

In March, U.S. authorities charged a senior vice president of Super Micro and two others associated with the company with conspiring to smuggle billions of dollars worth of high-performance servers containing Nvidia chips to China, breaching U.S. export control measures.