Prosecutors conducted a raid on Supermicro’s Taiwan office and expanded the investigation into the smuggling of Nvidia AI servers to China, targeting 12 sites including the data center operator Chief Telecom and the distributor Qingyun Technology.

On June 29, the Keelung District Prosecutors Office launched a second wave of searches, targeting 12 locations including Supermicro's Taiwan office, datacenter operator Chief Telecom (6561), and distributor Albatross Technology (5386), and summoned six tech company employees for questioning.
(Background: Taiwanese suspected of smuggling Nvidia AI chips into China! Bloomberg: Using Japan as a transit point to stealthily transport Supermicro high-end servers)
(Context: Huang Renxun declines congressional hearing, US lawmakers mock: Has time for zhajiangmian but not to explain Nvidia's China business)

Table of Contents

Toggle

• 700 million procurement cost, 50 servers shipped via Japan
• Chief Telecom searched: Why is a datacenter operator implicated?
• Taiwan's legal gap and upcoming patch

On June 29, the Keelung District Prosecutors Office directed the Keelung Investigation Team of the Investigation and Protection Division, in coordination with the Coast Guard Administration, the Taipei City Investigation Office of the Investigation Bureau, and the Keelung City Criminal Investigation Brigade, to simultaneously search 12 locations in Taipei, New Taipei, and other areas. Targets included Supermicro's Taiwan office, datacenter operator Chief Telecom (6561), and Supermicro distributor Albatross Technology (5386).

The six employees summoned included a Supermicro manager surnamed Wang and business personnel, who were successively taken to the Keelung District Prosecutors Office for further questioning. The case is being investigated for suspected crimes including forgery of documents, breach of trust, and violation of duty obligations under the Criminal Code.

700 million procurement cost, 50 servers shipped via Japan

The first search occurred on May 20, when investigators seized 50 Supermicro AI servers equipped with Nvidia GB300 chips, along with over NT$9 million in cash. The market procurement cost of these servers is estimated at approximately NT$700 million, averaging nearly NT$14 million per unit—making them among the highest-end AI computing hardware currently on the market.

The smuggling method is not complicated, but the design is: the involved company used false documentation to misdeclare the cargo, filing for export from Keelung Port with Japan as the destination, while actually using Japan as a transit point, then shipping via Hong Kong, ultimately delivering to customers in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Simply put, they used a three-stage detour route to send computing power based on Nvidia's latest AI chips to destinations explicitly prohibited by U.S. export controls.

The GB300 is Nvidia's latest AI training chip architecture, with significantly improved performance over the previous generation H100, and is a core item on the U.S. control list. Notably, in this case, it was not exported in chip form but integrated into Supermicro server systems, making disguise more difficult—and once seized, the scale is also harder to avoid.

Chief Telecom searched: Why is a datacenter operator implicated?

Among the three companies searched, the one that puzzled outsiders most was not Supermicro or Albatross, but Chief Telecom.

Chief Telecom is one of Taiwan's largest international-grade neutral datacenter (IDC) service providers. Its core business is "renting space and infrastructure," where customers bring their own devices. Chief Telecom itself does not sell or hold servers.

Since it has no server trading business, why did it appear on the search list? On June 29, Chief Telecom stated it is fully cooperating with prosecutors and will issue a statement after a management meeting. As of now, it has not explained the exact link involved. The likely direction is not "buying and selling" but "transit storage" or infrastructure assistance. If a smuggling chain needs an intermediate node for temporary storage, testing, or distribution of servers, a datacenter is the most natural place.

Taiwan's legal gap and upcoming patch

This case has a broader institutional background: Taiwan has not yet made "illegal export of AI chips to China" a separate criminal offense.

Currently, prosecutors can only invoke general charges under the Criminal Code, such as forgery of documents and breach of trust, with limited punitive power. The competent authorities can mainly remind companies that they may be violating U.S. export controls, rather than directly sanctioning them under domestic law. However, this gap is being filled. Taiwan is considering amending the law to directly include illegal export of AI chips as a criminal offense.

The front line for controlling AI chips has expanded from design blueprints and wafer fabs to datacenter racks and port cargo holds. In an era where computing power has become a strategic resource, no intermediate node in the supply chain can remain "outside" the fight.