A contractor linked to Super Micro Computer has pleaded guilty to conspiring to divert American servers carrying advanced Nvidia AI chips to China, in a scheme prosecutors say involved about $2.5 billion worth of US technology.

Ting-Wei Willy Sun entered the plea on four counts — including conspiracy to violate US export controls, smuggling goods from the United States, defrauding the country and obstructing justice — in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday, according to court filings. The case is one of the largest alleged breaches of American technology export controls since Washington tightened restrictions on AI chip sales to China on national security grounds.

How the scheme worked

Prosecutors say the operation began around October 2023, when Sun and others conspired to export servers from a US manufacturer, widely believed to be Super Micro, to China without the required licences. Sun acted as a broker and fixer, facilitating orders and taking steps to conceal the scheme — including staging dummy servers in December 2025 and making false statements to a US Department of Commerce officer during an inspection of supposedly stored servers that had already been diverted.

The chips at the centre of the case are Nvidia’s B200, H100 and H200 graphics processing units, all subject to US export restrictions. The United States and China are competing for dominance in artificial intelligence, with both pouring billions into technology seen as critical to economic growth, national security and military capability.

Co-accused and the company response

Also indicted were Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan Wally Liaw, who co-founded the AI-server maker in 1993 and joined its board in 2023, and Ruei-Tsang Steven Chang, a sales manager at the company’s Taiwan office. A lawyer for Sun declined to comment.

Super Micro, which was not named as a defendant, referred to its prior statements that the case has no impact on its business operations, and confirmed it had terminated Sun and cut ties with the other defendants earlier this year.