Grand Theft Hardware As Thieves Steal $11.4M NVIDIA Chip Shipment
As the cost of GPUs, memory, and storage keeps going up, PC enthusiasts could be forgiven for calling the current hardware market highway robbery. But in California, the expression took a more literal turn after thieves made off with half a dozen pallets of NVIDIA hardware worth an estimated $11.4 million.
The details sound like a mission you might come across in Grand Theft Auto VI, except this actually happened in real life, and not in Florida. According to ABC7 News, citing reporting by the Bay Area News Group, the shipment departed Oakland, California, on August 29 and was destined for Fort Worth, Texas. Somewhere along the line, the shipment disappeared.
A truck disguised as a food transportation vehicle picked up the pallets of NVIDIA chips as scheduled, but something went wrong after it left Oakland. Investigators attempting to retrace its movements eventually lost track of the truck and its drivers in San Bernardino County.
In a statement, the Oakland Police Department confirmed that it received a grand theft report on September 13, more than two weeks after the original pickup. The investigation remains ongoing, and authorities have not yet announced any arrests.
It's unclear exactly which NVIDIA products were inside the shipment. Given the company's extensive lineup of AI accelerators, server equipment, and consumer GPUs, there are numerous possibilities. Authorities also haven't disclosed how the cargo disappeared or whether any of the stolen equipment has been recovered.
Whatever was stolen, thieves could potentially fetch way over face value if the hot goods find their way overseas. Speaking to the outlet, Olaf Groth, a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, said thieves have "lots and lots of incentives to hijack those chips anywhere where security is weak."
"These chips command about double the price that they command inside the United States. So, if a chip costs about $550,000, then they go for about 1 million or more abroad," Groth added.
This also isn't the first NVIDIA-related theft to make headlines in the Bay Area. Last year, police investigated burglaries involving more than $7.5 million in NVIDIA cargo. And in another brazen heist, thieves made off with a truckload of Apple products and AMD chips worth $15 million in Nevada last year.
Then there was the rather amusing September incident we covered previously, when thieves apparently thought they'd struck GPU gold by stealing two NVIDIA-branded trailers. Instead, they wound up with 40,000 pounds of sand being used as ballast for autonomous truck testing. Yes, to lean into another expression, thieves who thought they hit pay dirt ended up pounding sand instead.
