Taiwan indicts nine over illegal AI server shipments to China
Prosecutors charged employees of Nvidia and Super Micro with breach of trust and document forgery after 74 high-end B300 servers equipped with advanced Nvidia chips reached Chinese customers through third-country routes.
Taipei2 min read
Last updated
Taipei, August 25, 2026 — Taiwanese prosecutors have charged nine people, including a manager from Nvidia’s Taiwan unit and two employees of Super Micro Computer, over the illegal export of advanced artificial-intelligence servers to China.
The Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office said eight of the defendants face charges of breach of trust and document forgery. One additional person was charged in connection with the diversion of funds. Prosecutors described a Taiwan-based Nvidia manager surnamed Zhang as the central figure in the scheme.
According to the indictment, the group arranged the purchase of 130 Super Micro servers equipped with Nvidia’s high-end B300 chips. False end-user documents claimed the hardware would remain at a rented facility in Taiwan and would not be sold to sanctioned entities. In reality 74 of the servers reached Chinese customers, either directly or through Indonesia, Japan and Hong Kong. Taiwanese customs stopped the remaining 56.
Prosecutors said the defendants were fully aware of Nvidia and Super Micro’s internal export-control procedures yet colluded for profit. They alleged the scheme increased corporate compliance costs and damaged Taiwan’s international image. Maximum sentences of five years are being sought for several of the accused.
The case sits at the intersection of US export controls on advanced AI chips and China’s demand for the same hardware. Washington has barred sales of the most powerful Nvidia processors to China. Taiwan, which manufactures a large share of the world’s advanced semiconductors, has come under pressure to enforce those restrictions.
This is the first known indictment of an Nvidia employee over alleged illegal exports of the company’s AI servers. The servers involved are subject to US export-control rules that require on-site checks for large orders. Prosecutors said those checks were circumvented through forged documentation and internal leaks of vetting procedures.
Chinese companies have sought back-door routes to obtain restricted chips. The Taiwanese investigation shows how such routes can run through local employees of the very companies whose technology is controlled. The outcome of the prosecutions will test how far Taiwan is prepared to go in policing its own technology sector on behalf of the broader US-led export regime.
