Taiwanese prosecutors have detained an employee of Nvidia, a company accused of smuggling artificial intelligence accelerators to mainland China. The authorities also conducted a search of the individual’s office at the company as part of an expanding investigation into chip smuggling.
According to Bloomberg, this marks the first legal action taken against an employee of Nvidia by the Taiwanese government, following the recent detentions of employees of U.S.-based company Supermicro, an AI server distributor, and a data center operator.
On July 24, investigators from the Keelung District Prosecutors Office searched the employee’s residence as well as their office desk at Nvidia’s Taipei office. Sources revealed that subsequently, the prosecutors applied for and were granted permission to detain the employee on charges of forging documents and breach of trust. The authorities have not disclosed the identity of the individual.
In May of this year, the Taiwanese government carried out its initial round of detentions, accusing three individuals of falsifying documents to export Nvidia AI chips to China, thereby violating relevant U.S. trade restrictions.