Nvidia Staff Charged in Taiwan Over Banned AI Server Exports

Taiwanese prosecutors have charged nine people, including one from Nvidia and two from Super Micro, for illegally exporting high-end AI servers to mainland China. This move adds another wave of turbulence in the AI ​​rivalry between China and the United States.

AI infrastructure has become a key point of competition between the two nations, with Washington imposing restrictions on Nvidia's exports of advanced chips to China since 2022. The U.S. tightened these restrictions in subsequent years, requiring licenses for exports of Nvidia's H20 chips to China as of April 2025.

The export controls state that any sale by Nvidia of high-end AI servers requires a strict review process, and company staff must conduct on-site checks to clients when purchasing more than eight such servers. Prosecutors said the involved servers were graphics processing units known as 'B300,' which have been banned from sale to China.

The nine defendants allegedly set up a company in Japan to help transfer some of the servers, while others created fake websites and falsified information to evade export restrictions. Seventy-four servers arrived in China successfully, with 50 sent through Indonesia, 16 delivered directly, and eight sent to Japan first before landing in mainland China.