U.S. authorities on March 19 charged the cofounder of Super Micro Computer, also known as Supermicro, and two workers with diverting to China servers containing Nvidia-made chips, which are subject to U.S. export controls.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement that it had arrested Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw, a U.S. citizen who co-founded Supermicro and served as senior vice president of business development at the publicly traded company, along with Taiwanese citizen Ting-Wei “Willy” Sun, who worked as a contractor for the company. Liaw is also a member of the company’s board of directors, according to a company statement.
The DOJ said that a third defendant, identified as Ruei-Tsang “Steven” Chang, a Taiwanese citizen who worked as a general manager for Supermicro in Taiwan, is still at large.
According to the indictment, between 2024 and 2025, the defendants allegedly diverted at least $2.5 billion worth of servers equipped with Nvidia-made graphics processing units (GPUs) to China in violation of U.S. export control laws.
Liaw and Chang allegedly directed executives of a Southeast Asian company, which the DOJ did not name in the indictment, to place purchase orders with Supermicro for servers with certain GPUs, purportedly for that company.
The servers were assembled in the United States, shipped to Supermicro facilities in Taiwan, and subsequently delivered to the company at another location in Southeast Asia, according to the indictment.
Hellbound and Down 