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The US has arrested another suspect accused of smuggling high-end computer servers containing export-controlled Nvidia chips into China.
In a press release on Thursday, the Department of Justice accused 38-year-old Greg Lui of using false paperwork to mask shipments of servers worth more than $300 million that he allegedly knew were ultimately destined for China.
As the CEO of Earthmade Computer, Lui allegedly conspired with freight-forwarding firms in South Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore to illegally divert chip shipments into China, including Nvidia’s A100 GPUs and H100 GPUs, the FBI’s indictment alleged. These are not Nvidia’s most advanced chips. However, the chips can process large amounts of data and train large language models, which the US fears could pose national security risks if China suddenly gets access to enough chips to drastically advance its AI or strengthen its military.
On its face, the recent summit between Donald Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping, didn’t change much in the world of AI regulation. Export controls were not discussed, with neither country seemingly interested in making concessions. An already tenuous trade truce was temporarily extended for just two months, and looming US controls that could drop soon could easily end that and trigger China to retaliate by cutting off exports of rare earths, analysts expect.
However, in the background of these shaky talks, Nvidia appeared to notch a big win, as China is currently mulling relaxing controls and allowing some of its biggest AI firms to import perhaps millions more of Nvidia’s banned chips over the next year.
Sources familiar with China’s talks told The Information that China’s tech oversight arm, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, asked Alibaba and ByteDance to share plans to buy Nvidia’s RTX Pro 5500 chips. Although these are gaming chips, China asked firms to detail how they plan to use them, with expectations that chips could be put into servers to help power the country’s most in-demand AI models.
Data centers have become the largest driver of a surging electricity demand that is straining US power grids. But the AI data center boom has also accelerated investment in a technology that could provide a silver lining for everyone—solid-state power transformers that replace industrial-age technology with modern power electronics.
Power grids currently rely on conventional transformer technology that is painstakingly assembled by hand and has a fundamental design dating back to the 1880s. Two copper wire coils manually wound around a steel core create electromagnetic fields that help step up voltage levels of alternating current electricity for long-distance transmission or step down voltage levels for the electricity use of homes and businesses. The largest power transformers cannot be mass-manufactured but are instead custom-built for each utility company’s electrical substations.
Manufacturing constraints, coupled with the scramble to upgrade US power infrastructure, have meant utility companies and other customers must wait up to several years for delivery of new power transformers. That not only hinders power grid infrastructure expansion needed to support growing electricity demand, but also delays the process of replacing aging power transformers.
Taiwan has indicted nine people—reportedly including an Nvidia senior manager and two Supermicro employees based in the country—who allegedly helped forge documents to cover up illegal exports of high-end AI servers to China in violation of US export controls.
On Monday, Reuters reported that prosecutors in Keelung did not release any names but confirmed that the suspects were “charged with breach of trust and document forgery.” One suspect linked to a related case remains at large, accused of the “siphoning of funds from a distributor company involved” in helping China get access to restricted Nvidia chips.
Since 2022, the US has required a license to export semiconductors to China, with the intent of protecting national security by staying ahead of China in the AI race. But after the US arrested Supermicro co-founder Wally Liaw in March for allegedly funneling $2.5 billion in restricted AI servers to China since 2024, Taiwan launched a separate probe to learn more about the scheme.
In a splashy move that signals that Taiwan remains irreplaceable to the AI industry's short-term and long-term goals, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced Wednesday that his chip company will invest $150 billion a year to make sure Taiwan remains at the "epicenter" of the "AI revolution."
"This is where the chips come, packaging comes, this is where the systems are made, this is where AI supercomputers were created," Huang said. "The number of partners we work with here in Taiwan, incredible."
As Reuters reported, the substantial investments will be used to create a new Taiwan headquarters for Nvidia, which Huang expects will drive so much AI innovation that the partnership will cement Taiwan as "the world's tech manufacturing hub for a long time." That ambitious project will be operational by 2030, Nvidia anticipates, after breaking ground this year.
Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC is raking in record profits during the AI boom—but it is also racing to help Taiwan develop wind power and other energy alternatives to fossil fuels amid a global energy crisis.
The chipmaker has signed a 30-year corporate power purchase agreement for 100 percent of the power produced by the Hai Long offshore wind project. The deal between TSMC and Northland Power, a Canada-based global power producer, covers more than 1 gigawatt of power capacity at three offshore wind sites located off the western coast of central Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait, according to an April 30 announcement.
Once completed, the Hai Long offshore wind project would have the capacity to power the equivalent of more than 1 million Taiwanese households. The project’s wind farms began supplying power to Taiwan’s grid in 2025 and are scheduled to become fully operational by 2027.
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