Taiwan indicts nine over Nvidia B300 servers smuggled to China
TL;DR
- Taiwan has no statute directly criminalizing AI hardware exports; prosecutors charged defendants under breach of trust and document forgery, a legal floor far below the actual offense.
- The Nvidia manager named Chang authorized the B300 GPU releases directly, meaning evasion operated at the vendor's own authorization layer, not around it.
- The 74 servers reached China via three simultaneous transshipment routes: Indonesia, direct shipment, and Japan-then-Hong-Kong, indicating organized multi-channel planning rather than opportunistic smuggling.
Taiwan's Keelung District Prosecutors' Office indicted nine people for rerouting 74 Nvidia B300 servers to Chinese buyers. Among the defendants: a partner manager at Nvidia's Taiwan office surnamed Chang, two sales managers at Super Micro's Taiwan branch surnamed Lin and Wang, and the chief executive of Albatron Technology, a Super Micro distributor.
The scheme, prosecutors say, dressed up 130 B300 servers as if they were headed for a rented facility inside Taiwan. 74 were routed on to Chinese customers instead. Of those, 50 were transhipped through Indonesia, eight through Japan, and the rest sent direct or via Hong Kong. Customs stopped the remaining 56 before they left.
The defendants "colluded with one another at various levels for enormous profit, illegally exporting high-end servers, increasing corporate compliance costs, and severely damaging our nation's international image," Keelung prosecutors said, adding that the group acted despite being "fully aware" of both companies' "rigorous" export control procedures. Charges include breach of trust, document forgery, and special breach of trust under the Securities and Exchange Act. Prosecutors are asking for 18 months to five years in prison, with the statutory maximum reserved for Chang and three other defendants they described as most involved.
Engadget notes that Taipei has held a stricter line on advanced AI hardware than Washington, even as the US eased curbs on older Nvidia parts like the H200; prior cases in the same enforcement pattern moved roughly $1 billion and $3.5 billion in equipment through Southeast Asia. It sits inside a steady run of China AI stories our tracker has logged over the last three months, alongside the 12.5 GW data-center buildout planned for Ulanqab that keeps mainland demand for this hardware climbing.
Digitimes headlined the story "How Nvidia's whitelist was beaten". The alleged scheme did not defeat a border check so much as an internal sales control, using false documents to move B300-class hardware through channels that were meant to be locked down.
What others are reporting
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Bloomberg Read →
Tier-1 financial press framing centers the Nvidia manager personally, elevating individual accountability over the corporate-compliance angle dominant in wire coverage.
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AP (via ABC News) Read →
AP wire provides the fullest operational map: three transshipment routes used simultaneously, plus a shell company in Japan and fake websites created to defeat export controls.
Taiwanese prosecutors charged nine people Monday, including one from Nvidia and two from Super Micro, for illegally exporting high-end AI servers to mainland China.
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Al Jazeera Read →
Only source to flag that AI server export is not a standalone criminal offense in Taiwan; prosecutors relied on breach of trust and forgery, exposing a legislative gap requiring remedy.
This not only increased corporate compliance costs but also severely damaged the nation's international image.
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PBS NewsHour Read →
Carries Nvidia's on-record response from spokesperson Patrick Rutherford and identifies the Nvidia manager as the 'key figure' who authorized the B300 GPU releases.
We will work with the Taiwan authorities to help them resolve the allegations as quickly as possible.
Originally reported by engadget.com
Read the original article →Original headline: Taiwan Indicts 9 Including Nvidia and Super Micro Staff Over 74 Smuggled B300 AI Servers to China