Three Supermicro employees charged in $2.5bn chip smuggling scheme

Three Supermicro employees face charges of conspiracy to smuggle restricted Nvidia H100, H200 and B200 chips to China. The alleged $2.5 billion scheme used dummy boxes, fake labels and a pass-through company. TechRadar describes it as the biggest heist of the US-China chip war.

Three men, identified as Supermicro employees, have been charged with conspiracy to smuggle restricted Nvidia H100, H200 and B200 GPUs to China, according to a TechRadar report published on March 20, 2026. The scheme is estimated at $2.5 billion and reportedly relied on dummy boxes, fake labels and a pass-through company to bypass restrictions. This case is framed within the ongoing US-China chip war, with restrictions on advanced semiconductor exports to China aimed at limiting technological advancements there. No further details on the individuals, exact charges or court proceedings were provided in the source. The report highlights the methods used to enable the smuggling operation.

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U.S. officials and Nvidia executives shake hands over H200 chip at press conference approving exports to China, with flags and reporters.
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U.S. approves Nvidia H200 chip exports to China

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The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on Tuesday that it would allow Nvidia to resume shipments of H200 chips to Chinese customers, marking the latest move by the Trump administration to ease technology export restrictions to China. The H200 is Nvidia's second-most-advanced AI processor, previously restricted over concerns about bolstering China's tech and military capabilities.

Super Micro Computer's stock fell more than 30% after US authorities charged employees, including a co-founder, with smuggling AI chips to China. The Department of Justice findings support the company's compliance and internal controls, with no charges against Super Micro itself. The incident involved an estimated $2.5 billion in smuggled sales, about 10% of the firm's FY25 revenue.

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President Donald Trump has announced a 25% tariff on certain advanced AI chips from Nvidia and AMD, allowing their export to China while claiming a share of the sales revenue. The policy reverses a prior export ban on Nvidia's H200 chips but imposes the levy to fund US interests. Industry executives view it as a way to shield the arrangement from legal challenges.

The Trump administration will pursue separate semiconductor tariff agreements with individual countries, a US official said, following a deal with Taiwan this week. The agreement allows Taiwanese firms building US chip capacity to import materials tariff-free up to 2.5 times planned output during construction. South Korea's trade minister assessed the impact on local chipmakers as limited.

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Nvidia-CEO Jensen Huang äußerte Zuversicht, dass südkoreanische Unternehmen die Bedenken hinsichtlich US-Zöllen während des Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)-Gipfels geschickt handhaben werden. Er hob die erheblichen Chancen Koreas in physischer KI und Robotik hervor und lobte die Partnerschaften mit Samsung und SK hynix. Die Äußerungen erfolgten kurz nachdem Seoul und Washington ein Handelsabkommen finalisiert hatten.

Nvidia hat Pläne angekündigt, bis zu 260.000 ihrer neuesten Blackwell-GPUs in Südkorea einzusetzen, in Partnerschaft mit der Regierung und Unternehmen wie Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group und Naver Cloud, um KI-Fabriken zu bauen. Die Initiative wird die KI-Rechenkapazität des Landes steigern und erhebliche Chancen für Samsung und SK hynix bei der Lieferung von High-Bandwidth-Memory-Chips bieten. Nvidia-CEO Jensen Huang lobte während des APEC-CEO-Gipfels in Gyeongju Südkoreas Weltklasse-Speichertechnologie.

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Samsung Electronics is set to begin shipping the world's first mass-produced HBM4 chips to Nvidia in the third week of this month. The deliveries will follow the Lunar New Year holiday and support Nvidia's Vera Rubin AI accelerator platform.

 

 

 

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