TLDR
- Jensen Huang publicly urged Super Micro Computer (SMCI) to improve its export compliance controls after arriving in Taipei on Saturday.
- Taiwan detained three people for allegedly making fraudulent declarations when exporting Super Micro AI servers containing Nvidia chips to China.
- The Taiwan case follows a larger U.S. federal indictment from March charging Super Micro’s co-founder and two others with smuggling ~$2.5 billion in Nvidia-equipped servers to China.
- Huang confirmed China is included in Nvidia’s projected $200 billion addressable market for its upcoming Vera CPU.
- Despite H200 chips being licensed for China, not a single unit has been delivered to a Chinese customer yet.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang arrived in Taipei on Saturday and wasted no time addressing the growing controversy around Super Micro Computer (SMCI) and AI chip smuggling to China.
Speaking to reporters at Songshan Airport, Huang said Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining U.S. trade regulations to its partners. He added that he hopes Super Micro will “enhance and improve” its compliance to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The comments come after Taiwan’s Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office announced it had detained three people earlier in the week. They are suspected of submitting fraudulent shipping declarations to export Super Micro servers — loaded with advanced Nvidia AI chips — to China, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Super Micro did not immediately respond to media requests for comment. However, the company previously said it is committed to protecting advanced U.S. technologies and will strengthen its global trade compliance program.
This isn’t the first time Super Micro has found itself at the center of an export control storm. In March, the U.S. Justice Department charged Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw and two others with conspiring to smuggle roughly $2.5 billion worth of Nvidia-equipped servers to China through shell companies in Southeast Asia.
Liaw has pleaded not guilty. Super Micro has said it is not named as a defendant and is cooperating with the investigation.
The Taiwan case is separate from the U.S. federal prosecution, but the two cases are closely linked. Both involve the same alleged pipeline — using intermediaries to move restricted Nvidia AI hardware into China in violation of U.S. export rules.
An earlier Bloomberg report this month also flagged a company connected to Thailand’s national AI effort as a suspected participant in routing Super Micro servers to China. Alibaba (BABA) was named as one of several end customers in that report.
Nvidia’s China Market Ambitions
Despite the cloud of export violations surrounding its hardware, Huang confirmed that China remains a core part of Nvidia’s long-term revenue outlook.
At the airport, Huang told reporters that China is included in the $200 billion addressable market he projected for Nvidia’s upcoming Vera CPU during the company’s May 20th earnings call.
Nvidia’s H200 chip has received a U.S. license to ship to China, and roughly ten Chinese firms have been cleared to purchase it. But as of now, not a single H200 unit has been delivered to a Chinese customer.
Huang described the Chinese market as “very important” and “very large,” saying it “would be terrific” to serve it. However, talks between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing earlier this month produced no breakthrough on the matter.
GTC Taipei and Computex
Huang is in Taiwan ahead of Nvidia’s GTC Taipei event and his Computex keynote, scheduled for June 1st. He is expected to detail the software stack behind Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform.
He described the platform as “the largest product launch, probably in the history of Taiwan.” Each Vera Rubin NVL72 system contains nearly 2 million parts and involves around 150 Taiwanese ecosystem partners.
As of the latest reports, no Super Micro shipments tied to the smuggling cases have resumed, and both the U.S. and Taiwan investigations remain active.
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