Until now, all incidents involving US regulators' suspicions regarding the involvement of American citizens in the smuggling of AI accelerators to China have involved small companies, but recently, charges were brought against individuals directly related to the management of Supermicro.
As emphasized CNBCThe indictment from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York mentions individuals associated with an American server hardware manufacturer, but the names of the defendants make it clear that it is specifically Super Micro Computer. Yih-Shyan Liaw, mentioned in the document, is the company's co-founder and a current board member. Ruei-Tsan Chang manages sales for this brand's equipment in Taiwan, and Ting-Wei Sun represents a Supermicro contractor.
According to US law enforcement, the three defendants organized the illegal export of server equipment with Nvidia accelerators to China using a shell company in Southeast Asia, which was listed as the final recipient in the documents. Another company was used to repackage the shipments to conceal their delivery to China.
The defendants reportedly prepared thousands of non-functional counterfeit servers for testing, then reused these same "dummy" servers during a U.S. Commerce Department audit. Prosecutors say that before the audit, the participants in the scheme used a heat gun to remove and reapply labels and stickers with serial numbers, then repackaged the counterfeit servers in the manufacturer's boxes.
According to investigators, the defendants exerted pressure on inspection agencies and attempted to mislead a U.S. Department of Commerce representative tasked with additional verification of the shipments. A Supermicro sales representative in Taiwan allegedly manipulated documents and attempted to recruit the "right" auditor for the audit.
Investigators believe that Yi Shen Lio attempted to organize shipments of Nvidia B200 accelerators to China through a shell company in late 2024. Investigators have fragments of correspondence between a Supermicro representative and his alleged accomplices. In 2025, he rushed suppliers, seeking to ship more equipment to China before new official bans came into effect. Two of the three defendants in the case have already been arrested, and the Taiwanese representative of Supermicro is wanted. The company's shares fell 12% on the news.
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Source: 3dnews.ru
