Californian accused of shipping $300M worth of Nvidia chips to China without Uncle Sam’s approval
Prosecutors claim Greg Lui helped China procure advanced hardware to develop, ahem, 'super intelligence’
A California businessman, Greg Lui, has been arrested for allegedly attempting to export Nvidia hardware worth $300 million to China without obtaining the necessary export licenses. The US government has prioritized preventing high-end GPUs, used for artificial intelligence development, from reaching Chinese hands. Lui's company, Earthmade Computer Inc, ordered Nvidia components, including A100, H100, PNY GE Force RTX 4090, and GeForce RTX 5090 GPUs, from US-based freight businesses and Malaysian transshipment companies.
He then sent the products to Malaysia and Singapore, both of which do not require export licenses from the Commerce Department, and the companies forwarded them to China, attempting to bypass US export controls. Lui is accused of violating regulations against selling sensitive equipment to adversarial countries like China, which could threaten national security and US technological dominance.
Prosecutors claim Lui received over $176 million in payments from Malaysian transshipment companies in exchange for facilitating sales of almost $300 million worth of Nvidia hardware. He is charged with multiple counts of export control violations, money laundering, and fraud, with a potential 50-year prison sentence.
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