Super Micro co-founder arrested over alleged $2.5B AI chip smuggling scheme

US authorities say they have charged and arrested Supermicro co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw for allegedly funnelling $2.5 billion in AI servers to China through shell companies.

US authorities say the co-founder of Super Micro Computer, Inc. has been charged and arrested over an alleged multi-billion dollar scheme to smuggle advanced artificial intelligence chips from the US to China.

The Justice Department said in a statement on Thursday that it had unsealed an indictment charging Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw, as well as Super Micro sales executives Ruei-Tsang “Steven” Chang, and Ting-Wei “Willy” Sun over the alleged conspiracy.

Prosecutors said the trio violated US export control laws by conspiring “to sell billions of dollars’ worth of servers integrating sensitive, controlled graphic processing units to buyers in China.”

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