Sun Pleads Guilty in Scheme to Divert Nvidia AI Chips to China

Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to unlawfully divert Nvidia AI chips to China, according to tomshardware.com. The plea was entered as part of an agreement with prosecutors whose cooperation details remain undisclosed.

Sun is expected to be sentenced on September 8, 2027. He was charged alongside Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw and sales manager Ruei-Tsang Chang.

Liaw has pleaded not guilty to the charges and remains free on a $5 million bond. He is scheduled to go to trial on November 2. Chang remains a fugitive.

Earlier allegations and related cases

Earlier this year, the case against the individuals was revealed after they were found to have diverted Super Micro servers containing Nvidia chips to China. The three allegedly sent servers to a Southeast Asian company that faked paperwork and built dummy servers for inspectors, while the real servers went to China. Investigators found the three used a Thailand-based corporation to receive the servers, which were then delivered to Alibaba, which denied receiving the banned hardware. Super Micro has denied knowledge of the operation, though it has netted $2.5 billion in sales since the operation started in 2024. Shareholders have sued Super Micro, accusing it of concealing its dependence on illicit sales to China. Taiwanese authorities have built their own case, raiding some Super Micro offices and the homes of six individuals. Super Micro denied its premises were raided, saying it cooperated with police and provided access to employee workstations and gadgets. Super Micro said it collaborated with U.S. and Taiwanese authorities and fired several employees after an independent investigation. Taiwan later indicted nine more people involved in the illegal smuggling of Nvidia B300 GPUs. Another tech CEO was arrested in California for smuggling $300 million in Nvidia AI servers to China.