US charges California man with smuggling $300M of Nvidia GPU servers to China via Singapore and Malaysia
On Oct 2, 2026 US authorities announced the arrest of Greg Lui, 38, who ran Earthmade Computer Inc. in City of Industry, California. He is charged with shipping about $300M of export-controlled servers with Nvidia GPUs to China in 2023–2024 through Singapore and Malaysia. The case came a day after a Bloomberg feature on how Nvidia's due diligence lets chips keep reaching Chinese AI firms.
Key facts
- Charges: conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act, outbound smuggling, and conspiracy to commit money laundering (Courthouse News)
- Scheme (prosecutors): Lui bought high-end servers with Nvidia GPUs from US manufacturers, falsely claiming they were for customers in countries that need no export license, shipped them to Singapore and Malaysia in 2023–2024, and forwarded them to China
- Example: 27 servers with Nvidia H100 GPUs bought from an unnamed US manufacturer for about $7.6M on a single purchase order
- Context: Bloomberg (Oct 1) reported mounting cases of Nvidia chips reaching Chinese AI companies despite export controls, pointing to gaps in Nvidia's due diligence
What happened
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles charged Greg Lui, owner of Earthmade Computer Inc., with running a 2023–2024 scheme that re-exported Nvidia GPU servers worth about $300M to Chinese customers through Singapore and Malaysia.
Why it matters
This is one of the largest individual AI-chip smuggling cases charged so far. It came a day after Bloomberg's feature questioning Nvidia's due diligence, and it shows the route through Southeast Asia that US chip-security proposals target.
Changelog
- 2026-10-02: created from sweep 2026-10-02 (Techmeme)
Related events
Sources (3)
- pressBloomberg: Man charged by US with illegally shipping Nvidia chips to China
- pressCourthouse News: California man charged with smuggling $300 million in restricted AI hardware to China
- pressBloomberg: Nvidia faces questions over China AI chip smuggling cases
id: 2026-10-02-earthmade-nvidia-server-smuggling-charges · updated 2026-10-02 · open in the interactive timeline