A former contractor charged alongside Super Micro Computer’s co-founder has pleaded guilty to helping smuggle AI servers to China, Bob Van Voris reported for Bloomberg.

Ting-Wei ‘Willy’ Sun entered his plea in a Manhattan federal court on Thursday, as part of a deal with prosecutors. US authorities have described him as a ‘fixer’.

A $2.5bn scheme

Prosecutors say Sun and others sent servers powered by Nvidia chips to a Southeast Asian company, then diverted them to customers in China. The servers held chips that US export rules bar from sale to China.

In March, prosecutors charged Sun and two others with conspiring to divert about $2.5bn of US AI technology, Reuters reported. Sun pleaded guilty to four counts, including conspiracy to break export controls.

The indictment says the group tried to fool auditors. They allegedly falsified records and set up ‘dummy’ servers, using a hair dryer to attach serial numbers.

Sun will be sentenced in September 2027. His lawyer declined to comment to Bloomberg.

Co-founder denies charges

Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan ‘Wally’ Liaw, who was charged in March, has pleaded not guilty. He has left the company’s board.

A third man, former Taiwan sales manager Ruei-Tsang ‘Steven’ Chang, has not appeared in court.

Super Micro is not a defendant. It said in August that its current senior leaders did not know about the scheme, and that it is working with investigators.

Smuggling cases are piling up. Last week, US prosecutors charged a California man with sending $300mn of AI servers to China.