TAIPEI — Taiwan's Keelung District Prosecutors Office indicted nine people Monday on charges tied to the illegal export of high-end artificial intelligence servers to China, naming employees of Nvidia, Super Micro Computer, Albatron Technology and Chief Telecom among the accused.
The indictments follow an investigation into the shipment of 74 servers built by Super Micro Computer and fitted with advanced Nvidia chips. Of those, 50 were routed through Indonesia, eight passed through Japan and the remainder went directly to China. Prosecutors also intercepted an additional 56 servers at Taiwan's border before they left the island.
Eight of the nine defendants face charges of breach of trust and document forgery. Three of the eight also face embezzlement charges. Prosecutors are seeking sentences of up to five years for seven of the accused, describing them as people "driven by the pursuit of exorbitant profits" who colluded to move the servers illegally.
The nine defendants include two employees from Super Micro, one from Nvidia, one from Taiwan-listed Albatron Technology and one from Chief Telecom. Prosecutors identified the Nvidia employee as a partner manager for the company's distribution business, surnamed Chang. Two other defendants, surnamed Lin and Wang, formerly worked at Super Micro. Neither Nvidia nor Super Micro responded to requests for comment.
Prosecutors said two defendants who confessed to all charges and cooperated with the investigation will receive more lenient sentencing recommendations. The statement did not name those two individuals.
The servers are subject to U.S. export controls. The United States bars the sale and transfer to China of the most advanced chips used to run artificial intelligence systems, and Nvidia's high-end processors sit at the top of that restricted list. Super Micro's servers are among the primary platforms into which those chips are installed for use in data centers.
Taiwan's legal position presents a structural problem for enforcement. Smuggling U.S.-restricted chips out of Taiwan is not a criminal offense under Taiwanese law — a gap that lawmakers and legal experts have publicly said needs to close. Prosecutors in this case relied on breach of trust, document forgery and embezzlement statutes rather than any dedicated export-control law to build their charges.
In their statement, prosecutors said the conduct "not only increased corporate compliance costs but also severely damaged the nation's international image." The remark points to Taipei's concern that Taiwan — home to the world's most advanced chip fabrication through Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — is being used as a waypoint for technology transfers that its closest security partner, the United States, has explicitly prohibited.
The transhipment routes through Indonesia and Japan underscore the logistical networks that enforcement agencies say are used to obscure the final destination of restricted hardware. By routing goods through third countries, exporters can generate paperwork suggesting the servers are destined for a permitted buyer, making customs screening more difficult at each stop.
