Super Micro Co-Founder Charged In $2.5B NVIDIA AI Chip Smuggling Scheme To China

Liaw, a U.S. citizen and long-standing figure in the Silicon Valley tech scene, is accused of conspiring with Steven Chang Ruei-Tsang, a sales manager in Taiwan, and Willy Sun Ting-Wei, a third-party broker. Together, they allegedly diverted approximately $2.5 billion worth of high-performance servers, many equipped with NVIDIA GPUs, to Chinese and Hong Kong customers between 2024 and 2025. These specific chips are subject to strict Department of Commerce export licenses because of their potential use in advanced military applications and surveillance.

The scale of the diversion was shockingly hardcore. In a single three-week window between April and May 2025, the group allegedly moved over $510 million worth of hardware to China. There have been reports suggesting that when news broke of other chip smugglers being arrested in late 2025 for smuggling, Liaw reacted with sobbing emojis in text messages to his associates, while continuing the shipments regardless.

While Super Micro Computer itself has not been charged, the fallout was immediate. The company’s stock price plummeted nearly 25% in pre-market trading as investors reacted to the potential for massive fines and the loss of export privileges. As part of damage-control, the manufacturer placed Liaw and Chang on administrative leave and terminated its relationship with Sun, stating that the alleged conduct was a direct contravention of internal compliance policies.

Liaw was arrested in California and released on bail, while Sun is being held awaiting a detention hearing, and Taiwan-based Chang remains a fugitive. If convicted of violating the Export Control Reform Act and conspiring to defraud the government, the defendants face up to 20 years in federal prison.