Nvidia raised concerns with Taiwanese political officials about the arrest of a manager accused of helping smuggle AI chips into China, Bloomberg reported on November 15, citing people familiar with the matter. The manager, surnamed Chang, was arrested in July and indicted in August on forgery and breach-of-trust charges. Source
Nvidia says its internal investigation found no evidence that Chang knew about the alleged diversion by employees of other companies, according to Seeking Alpha’s account of Bloomberg’s reporting. The allegations remain subject to trial. Source
Taiwanese prosecutors described Chang as the “core figure” of a network that allegedly smuggled 74 servers containing Nvidia chips to China, Bloomberg reported. The network allegedly attempted to divert another 56 servers, which Taiwan’s Coast Guard seized in May. Those numbers count servers, not individual chips. Source
Seeking Alpha reports that prosecutors also accuse Chang of helping obtain approval for 130 server sales to a Taiwanese infrastructure provider that lacked adequate installation space. They also allege he concealed the buyer’s financial shortcomings and funding from a Chinese entity. Enough room for the machines is hardly a minor detail in a server sale. Source
Nvidia also challenged the charges in its discussions with political officials, Seeking Alpha reports, citing Bloomberg’s unnamed sources. The officials’ answer, in that account: they couldn’t intervene in judicial proceedings. Source
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