DOJ charges three Super Micro execs in China GPU export scheme

U.S. authorities arrested Super Micro Computer co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw and executive Ting-Wei “Willy” Sun, and charged sales executive Ruei-Tsang “Steven” Chang, over an alleged $2.5 billion scheme to ship servers with U.S.-controlled graphics processing units to China. The Justice Department unsealed the indictment on Thursday.

The indictment alleges the three conspired in 2024 and 2025 to sell billions of dollars’ worth of servers integrating controlled GPUs to a company in China, in violation of U.S. export controls. Prosecutors estimate roughly $510 million in sales took place between April and May 2025.

According to James Barnacle Jr., assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office: “These defendants allegedly fabricated documents, staged bogus equipment to pass audit inventories, and used a pass-through company to conceal their misconduct and true clientele list.”

Liaw and Sun are in custody and are scheduled to appear in the Northern District of California. Chang, a Taiwanese citizen based outside the United States, remains a fugitive, according to the Justice Department.

Super Micro was not charged. The California-based server maker stated that the alleged conduct contradicts company policies and compliance controls and that it is assisting authorities. In a statement, a company spokesperson wrote: “The company has been cooperating fully with the government’s investigation and will continue to do so. Supermicro has not been named as a defendant in the indictment.”

Super Micro, valued at about $18.5 billion, builds high-performance server and data center hardware for large enterprises. Customers include IBM, and the company lists infrastructure partnerships with Nvidia and Google.

The company’s shares, which had risen during regular trading Thursday, fell 13.25% to $26.71 in after-hours trading following the Justice Department’s announcement.