U.S.–China Technology Controls

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw, a 71-year-old senior vice president and board member of Super Micro Computer Inc., and two associates with conspiring to smuggle billions of dollars’ worth of U.S.-assembled AI servers containing advanced Nvidia chips to China in violation of export controls. The indictment alleges that from 2024 to 2025 Liaw and Taiwan-based sales manager Ruei-Tsang "Steven" Chang directed a Southeast Asian company to place about $2.5 billion in Supermicro server orders, then diverted at least $510 million in those U.S.-assembled systems to Chinese customers, using fabricated documents, staged inventory and a pass-through firm to hide the true destination. Liaw and contractor Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun were arrested in California Thursday, while Chang remains a fugitive, as U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton warned that such schemes "pose a direct threat to U.S. national security" amid a U.S.–China race over artificial intelligence hardware. The case tests the teeth of Biden- and Trump-era restrictions on Nvidia’s most powerful AI chips to China, which the Trump administration has partially loosened only for lower-tier processors in exchange for a 15% commission to the U.S. government. Supermicro issued a statement distancing itself from the alleged conduct, calling it a violation of company policies and saying it maintains a "robust compliance program" even as the charges raise questions about how effective corporate controls really are in policing tech exports tied to national-security policy.