Nvidia Manager Indicted in Taiwan Over Banned Chip Sales to China

Taiwanese prosecutors have indicted nine individuals, including an Nvidia manager, for violating export controls and smuggling cutting-edge AI chips to China.

The indictment, announced on Monday by Taiwan's Keelung District Prosecutor's Office, names the Nvidia partner manager surnamed Chang as one of the accused. Two other men, surnamed Lin and Wang, formerly worked for Nvidia partner Supermicro, which manufactures servers equipped with Nvidia's enterprise-grade GPUs.

The scheme allegedly involved selling Nvidia's B300 systems, which use its latest Blackwell architecture, to buyers in China despite being barred from export. A single B300 system can contain eight Blackwell Ultra GPUs and retail for around $400,000 in the US, but the price can be much higher in China.

Taiwan prosecutors determined that the group exported 74 B300 systems to China, including using Indonesia as a pass-through market. The indictment also alleges that they intended to export another 56 servers before being stopped by Taiwan Customs due to irregularities in the shipment.