Taiwanese prosecutors have charged a senior Nvidia executive with involvement in smuggling advanced artificial intelligence chips to China, people familiar with the matter said. An Nvidia employee named Zhang and eight others allegedly arranged to ship 74 servers equipped with B300 chips to China via Japan and Indonesia to circumvent U.S. trade restrictions. Taiwanese authorities thwarted an attempt to smuggle an additional 56 servers.
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In addition to Zhang, two senior AMD employees were also charged. According to prosecutors, the gang “Conspiracy to illegally export high-end servers, obtain huge profits, increase corporate compliance costs, and seriously damage Taiwan’s international image.”.
Senior employees at four other companies were also charged. These include Qingyun Technology, a distributor of AMD equipment, Feihu Corporation, which has been accused of being an end-user of contraband Nvidia equipment, and two intermediary companies that help arrange customers in China and facilitate actual deliveries. Prosecutors had asked for a five-year prison sentence for Zhang, who was considered a “key figure” in the criminal scheme and was charged with forgery and breach of trust.
Washington has long restricted Beijing’s purchases of U.S. artificial intelligence chips, but Chinese companies have still managed to obtain coveted accelerators through illegal means. U.S. officials say billions of dollars worth of Nvidia equipment has entered China over the past few years.
Taiwan has not accused Nvidia of any wrongdoing. Nvidia denies the possibility of smuggling of its artificial intelligence accelerator. “Smuggling is excluded, – said an Nvidia representative. — We sell primarily to reputable partners, including original equipment manufacturers, who help us ensure that all sales comply with U.S. export controls. “.
Here’s how the criminal scheme worked, according to Taiwanese prosecutors. Flying Tigers executives created a company in Japan designed to serve as a relay station for smuggled equipment. They successfully added Flying Tigers to the list of Nvidia partners. The attackers, working with SuperMicro’s senior director of sales, Albatron’s CEO, and a manager at Taiwanese data center operator Chief Telecom, managed to get Feihu to lease enough space in Chief Telecom’s facilities to house the equipment.
The criminals managed to fraudulently convince inspectors of their honesty, after which Supermicro agreed to sell 130 servers to Flying Tigers. In early 2026, a group of defendants agreed to sell 40 of these servers to an unnamed Chinese customer, shipping directly to China and through Indonesia on behalf of Feihu. An additional 34 servers were exported by Long Wins, which was linked to the case through its contacts with a second accused Super Micro manager. The equipment was divided between Indonesia and Japan, and was ultimately purchased by a second Chinese company that Longyun arranged to purchase.
When Feihu attempted to export the remaining 56 servers to Japan using false documents, Taiwanese authorities blocked the criminal plan. A few days after the incident, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang arrived in Taipei. At the time, Taiwanese authorities detained just three people and said they had seized an unspecified number of ultra-micro servers packed with Nvidia chips. Huang Renxun said that Nvidia is “strictly” clarifying the rules and the responsibility lies with AMD. SuperMicro said its sales policy is consistent with Nvidia’s and called for industry-wide solutions.
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