(May 23): Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner.
The development marked the island’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei on Saturday.
“Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” Huang said in response to the Taiwan case. “I hope that they will enhance and improve their regulation compliance and avoid that from happening in the future.”
It’s unusual for Huang to comment on compliance among his company’s partners, which are key to making and distributing the servers that house Nvidia chips. A Taiwanese court granted prosecutors’ request to detain the three people involved in the case on Thursday.
Super Micro didn’t immediately respond to a request for comments outside of regular business hours.
Super Micro assembles AI chips from the likes of Nvidia into systems that are installed in data centres and used to train and run models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Washington has restricted sales of the hardware to China since 2022. The defendants allegedly conspired to purchase servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, local prosecutors said earlier this week.
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Servers of Super Micro are also the subject of the biggest chip smuggling prosecution in the US, where authorities arrested the firm’s co-founder for allegedly diverting billions of dollars worth of Nvidia chips to China. He has pled not guilty. That case reverberated from Silicon Valley to Southeast Asia, a sign that Washington is getting serious about addressing a chip smuggling problem that Huang once denied exists.
The Taiwan case was initiated independently and is not directly linked to the US indictment, according to a spokesperson for the island’s prosecutors’ office. However, whether the two cases are connected in any way will require further investigation to determine, the prosecutorial spokesperson said earlier this week.
Huang recently accompanied US President Donald Trump on a visit to China, the world’s largest market for semiconductors.
Uploaded by Tham Yek Lee
