Broker pleads guilty in Supermicro co-founder's Nvidia server diversion case

Willy Sun, described by US prosecutors as a third-party broker and “fixer,” has pleaded guilty in the case over servers with Nvidia GPUs that prosecutors say were diverted to China, Bloomberg Law reported on Friday. (Source: Bloomberg Law)

His co-defendant Wally Liaw, described in the indictment as a co-founder, board member and senior vice president of business development at a US server maker that press reports identify as Supermicro, has pleaded not guilty. A third defendant, a general manager in the company’s Taiwan office, remains a fugitive, according to the Justice Department. Supermicro itself is not charged. (Source: US Department of Justice)

What the indictment alleges

The indictment, filed in March in Manhattan federal court, alleges that “at least approximately $2.5 billion worth” of servers were sold to one customer from about 2024 and diverted to China without export licenses, including more than $510 million between late April and mid-May 2025. The GPUs named are Nvidia’s B200, H100 and H200. Prosecutors allege the scheme used false documents and staged dummy servers to mislead inspectors. The Justice Department notes that the indictment’s contents “constitute only allegations.”

Liaw’s trial, first set for November 2, was moved to March 2027 after his lawyer disclosed in court that Supermicro had received a grand jury subpoena, MLex reported. (Source: MLex)

Not the only case

In August, prosecutors in Keelung, Taiwan, indicted nine people over 130 Nvidia B300 servers ordered on paperwork saying they would stay in Taiwan; 74 allegedly reached customers in China and 56 were stopped by customs, the Taipei Times reported. Defendants include two Supermicro Taiwan employees. Supermicro said it “is not a target” and “has not been accused of any wrongdoing.” Separately, US authorities arrested the chief executive of a California company accused of smuggling about $300 million of Nvidia chips into China, Ars Technica reported on October 2.

Nvidia’s position

Nvidia, which is not accused of wrongdoing, said in a statement relayed by Bloomberg that “less than one half of one percent” of its products were allegedly diverted, calling it “a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of domestic compute China already has.” (Source: Ars Technica)

The case is unrelated to Bloomberg Businessweek’s 2018 report about alleged spy chips on Supermicro motherboards, which Supermicro, Apple and Amazon denied at the time.