The United States has indicted men with alleged supermicrocomputer ties for aiding in the smuggling of billions of dollars worth of AI chips into China.
Published March 20, 2026
Three people, including the co-founder of artificial intelligence server maker Super Microcomputer, have been charged with aiding and abetting the smuggling of at least $2.5 billion worth of U.S. AI technology into China in violation of export laws, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
U.S. prosecutors did not name SuperMicro in the complaint, referring only to it as an “American manufacturer,” but San Jose, Calif.-based SuperMicro said it was informed of the indictment by federal prosecutors on Thursday.
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The company, which itself is not named as a defendant in the case, said it had cooperated with investigators.
The Justice Department announced Thursday in an indictment unsealed in federal court in Manhattan that it charges Yi Xiang Liau, Rui Tsang Zhang and Tingwei Sun with a complex scheme to ship U.S.-made servers via Taiwan to Southeast Asian countries, where they were placed in unmarked boxes and shipped to China.
The United States has imposed restrictions on exports of advanced AI chips to China starting in 2022.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Barnacle said in a statement that the defendants used falsified documents, staged fake equipment to pass audit manifests, and used pass-through companies to hide their fraud and true client lists.
Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said such a plan “poses a direct threat to the national security of the United States.”
Liaw co-founded Super Micro in 1993 and joined the board in 2023. Mr. Chang was a sales manager for Super Micro’s Taiwan office, and Mr. Sun was a contractor.
Officials allege that the trio took extensive steps to hide their activities from both U.S. server manufacturers and export control authorities, including using a hair dryer to remove labels and serial numbers from real machines and pasting them on dummy machines left behind after the real machines were shipped to China.
Liau, 71, a U.S. national, was arrested in California on Thursday along with Sun, 44, a company contractor. According to the Associated Press, authorities said Chan remains a fugitive.
Mr. Liau was released on bail, but Mr. Sun, a Taiwanese national, was detained for a bail hearing on Friday.
Super Micro stock price decline
The company said it placed Mr. Liau and Mr. Chan on leave and ended its relationship with Sun after being informed of the charges on Thursday.
Supermicro’s stock price fell 8% in after-hours trading following the news.
U.S. authorities have also not said which chips were involved in the alleged scheme, but Nvidia dominates the AI chip market and some of its products command the highest prices.
Nvidia, which sells chips to Supermicro and other server makers, said in a statement that “strict compliance” with export laws is its top priority.
“As export regulations expand, we continue to work closely with our customers and governments on compliance programs,” an NVIDIA spokesperson said.
“The illegal diversion of controlled U.S. computers to China is a bad proposition overall. NVIDIA provides no service or support for such systems, and our enforcement mechanisms are rigorous and effective.”
