Nvidia manager indicted in Taiwan for smuggling AI chips to China

A senior distribution manager at Nvidia’s Taiwan office has been indicted for allegedly orchestrating an elaborate scheme to smuggle more than 100 advanced AI servers into China. The operation reportedly used third countries as waypoints and forged documents to sidestep US export restrictions, marking one of the first criminal cases against Nvidia personnel tied to illegal chip exports. The Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office brought charges against nine individuals on August 24, accusing them of document forgery and breach of trust. The Nvidia manager, surnamed Chang, had already been detained in July as the investigation gained steam. The smuggling playbook According to prosecutors, the scheme involved routing shipments of high-performance Nvidia GPUs, specifically the B300 and Blackwell models, through countries like Japan and Indonesia before they ultimately landed in China. The servers were accompanied by falsified documentation designed to make the exports look legitimate. The US imposed sweeping export restrictions on advanced AI chips destined for China starting in 2022, and has tightened those controls multiple times since. Those restrictions turned chips like Nvidia’s fl...