California tech CEO arrested, faces up to 20 years in prison for smuggling $300 million in Nvidia AI servers to China

A California man has been arrested for smuggling over $300 million worth of restricted Nvidia chips to China in violation of U.S. export controls. According to a U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) press release on October 1, the defendant — Greg Lui, also known as Yiu Kong Lui — and unidentified co-conspirators smuggled the chips in high-end servers from 2023 to 2024. He allegedly first exported the chips to Malaysia and Singapore, jurisdictions where the restrictions don't apply, before shipping them to buyers in China, including the Chinese government.

Authorities say the defendant, owner of California-based company Earthmade Computer Inc., and his co-conspirators had used false paperwork to misrepresent the chips’ final destination, purporting that the controlled chips would be going to permissible end users and end destinations that did not require an export license. …