Earthmade Owner Charged in $300M Nvidia Server Smuggling Scheme to China

Federal authorities have charged Greg Lui, owner of California-based tech company Earthmade Computer, with smuggling over $300 million worth of Nvidia-equipped servers to China. The indictment alleges that Lui and his company circumvented U.S. export controls by falsifying buyer and destination records, routing shipments through Malaysia and Singapore before reaching Chinese buyers. The charges include export-control conspiracy, outbound smuggling, and money-laundering conspiracy, with the smuggling counts covering activities from October 2023 through August 2026 and the financial count spanning a separate period in 2024.

The indictment details how Earthmade allegedly procured servers containing Nvidia H100 graphics processing units (GPUs) from U.S. manufacturers without obtaining the required Commerce Department licenses for China exports. Documents falsely listed permissible buyers and destinations, while the servers were shipped through intermediaries in Malaysia and Singapore to obscure their final destination in China. For instance, in January 2024, 27 H100-equipped servers worth approximately $7.614 million were shipped to Kuala Lumpur before being forwarded to a Chinese industrial company in Hangzhou.

Prosecutors allege that Earthmade received over $176 million from two Malaysian companies between January and October 2024, with the funds being used to finance further purchases of controlled servers. The money-laundering charge suggests that these payments supported the underlying smuggling activity. Nvidia has stated that it cooperates with law enforcement and has been involved in previous prosecutions related to such activities. If convicted, Lui faces a maximum of 20 years for each of the export-control and money-laundering conspiracy charges and 10 years for outbound smuggling.