Indictment claims dummy servers and bogus docs used to slip past US export controls

A co-founder of Supermicro is among three people charged with diverting servers fitted with Nvidia GPUs worth $2.5 billion to Chinese customers in violation of US export controls.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed an indictment on Thursday naming Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw, along with two others connected with Supermicro, as defendants.

It accuses them of conspiring to sell billions' worth of high-performance servers with GPUs to China, evading export controls through the use of false documents, dummy servers to mislead inspectors, and convoluted shipment schemes to disguise the true destination of the kit.

Liaw is a co-founder and Senior Vice President of Business Development at the server maker, based in San Jose, California.

The other two defendants are Ruei-Tsang "Steven" Chang, whom the DOJ says is a general manager in Supermicro's Taiwan office, and Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun, identified by the Feds as a third-party broker alleged to have ...