Taiwan Indicts Nvidia Manager Over Alleged Diversion of 74 B300 Servers to China

Taiwan has indicted an Nvidia manager surnamed Chang and eight others over an alleged operation that sent 74 servers carrying high-end B300 chips to Chinese customers. The alleged route ran through Japan and Indonesia and was intended to circumvent US trade restrictions.

One alleged inventory, two outcomes

Investigators allege that co-conspirators falsified documents to show 130 Nvidia B300 servers were installed and operating at a Taiwan facility. They say 74 of those systems were exported and delivered to Chinese customers, while Taiwanese customs blocked the other 56 after detecting irregularities.

The alleged paperwork placed every system at a domestic facility, while the customs intervention involved systems authorities say were intended for China. The charges remain allegations and have not been adjudicated.

Charges and controls

Taiwanese prosecutors said the suspects were charged with breach of trust and document forgery. The alleged exports would have violated US controls requiring a license for semiconductor exports to China since 2022.

Prosecutors also said the indicted employees knew Nvidia and Supermicro had rigorous internal procedures for exports to China. That allegation focuses attention on whether controls were followed and whether installation records could be independently verified.

Employee links and company response

Bloomberg identified Nvidia’s employee by the surname Chang. Ars Technica reported that the nine people indicted included an Nvidia senior manager and two Taiwan-based Supermicro employees, though prosecutors did not publicly name the suspects in that account.

Chang was initially detained last month, according to Bloomberg, which was unable to reach him. One suspect tied to a related case remains at large and is accused of siphoning funds from a distributor involved in giving China access to restricted Nvidia chips.

Supermicro said it was cooperating with Taiwanese investigators and was not a target of the probe. Tom’s Hardware reported that the company had fired employees connected to the alleged scheme and that a third-party inquiry cleared its current senior officials of involvement.

Physical shipments alongside a cloud-access proposal

Bloomberg characterized the prosecution as Taiwan’s first known crackdown on black-market trade in advanced AI accelerators. The case concerns alleged physical exports, rather than restrictions on using computing power after hardware is installed.

That distinction matters as US lawmakers weigh the Remote Access Security Act. If enacted, the proposal would extend export controls to remote cloud-based access to critical hardware and software; it has not become law.