Contractor Ting-Wei Sun Reportedly Pleads Guilty in Super Micro Nvidia Server Smuggling Case
Bloomberg reports the plea in a case over about $2.5 billion in Nvidia-powered servers allegedly diverted to China.
Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun, an outside contractor U.S. prosecutors have described as a "fixer," has pleaded guilty in a New York federal court in the case over the alleged diversion of about $2.5 billion in Nvidia-powered servers to China, according to Bloomberg. The report, published October 9, did not give the date of the plea, the specific counts or a sentencing date.
Background
Sun was one of three people charged in the case, alongside Super Micro Computer co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw and Ruei-Tsang "Steven" Chang, a former general manager of the company's Taiwan office. Prosecutors alleged the servers were shipped through a company in Southeast Asia before reaching China.
Earlier reporting on the charges said the defendants faced counts of conspiring to violate the Export Control Reform Act, conspiring to smuggle goods from the United States and conspiring to defraud the U.S. government. Liaw and Sun had entered not-guilty pleas at an earlier hearing before Judge Edgardo Ramos, who set a November 2 trial date.
According to those reports, Super Micro itself has not been accused of wrongdoing. Liaw resigned his board seat and was placed on administrative leave, Sun was fired, and Chang is not in U.S. custody.
What to watch
- Whether the plea involves cooperation with prosecutors in the case against Liaw
- Whether the November 2 trial date holds
- How U.S. export-control enforcement affects shipments of AI servers built around Nvidia accelerators
The details of Sun's plea come from a single report relayed by an aggregator, and the Justice Department's own filings were not reviewed for this article. Liaw's case remains pending, and he is presumed innocent.
