Taiwanese authorities raided Supermicro’s office in Taiwan on Monday (June 29) as part of an ongoing probe into the alleged smuggling of Nvidia AI chips to China.
According to reports from Bloomberg and the FT, Taiwan's Keelung District Prosecutors' Office also searched the homes of six individuals alongside three additional Supermicro-affiliated sites.
Investigators also searched sites related to Supermicro distributor Albatron Technology and data center operator Chief Telecom, the reports noted, with Albatron confirming the search in a regulatory filing.
Supermicro shares fell by around eight percent following the news.
Bloomberg has since reported that Taiwanese prosecutors have detained two Supermicro employees and an Albatron manager as a result of the raids. Two other individuals have been released on bail but have been told they must remain in Taiwan.
The raids come about a month after Supermicro publicly declared it was “committed to protecting our advanced technologies and intellectual property,” revealing in a statement that it had been working “closely with the Taiwanese authorities” to prevent the "illicit diversion of our highly sought-after systems into the restricted China market.“
As a result of the collaboration, the authorities have seized 50 servers that had been “deceptively acquired after being sold by Supermicro to an authorized reseller,” the company said at the time.
In March, three people with ties to Supermicro were charged by the US Department of Justice for allegedly conspiring to smuggle Nvidia AI chips into China. The indictment claimed that some $2.5 billion in servers were shipped to China, despite Supermicro lacking a Commerce Department license.
The accused included Supermicro’s co-founder, Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw, who resigned from Supermicro’s board of directors following his arrest. In early April, he pled not guilty to the charges in a Manhattan federal court.