Super Micro Contractor Pleads Guilty in Manhattan to Role in $2.5 Billion SI Server Diversion to China
NEW YORK — Ting-Wei Sun, a former contractor for Super Micro Computer, pleaded guilty on October 8 in Manhattan federal court to four conspiracy counts: violating export controls, smuggling goods, defrauding the United States and obstructing justice. The plea was disclosed in court filings reported on October 9. The case is before U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos; no sentencing date for Sun has been publicly disclosed, and his lawyer declined to comment on the plea.
The case stems from an indictment unsealed by the Justice Department on March 19. Also charged were Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan Liaw and Taiwan sales manager Ruei-Tsang Chang; both still face charges, which have not been proven at trial. Prosecutors allege that beginning around October 2023 the three conspired to divert servers containing advanced Nvidia SI chips to China: a Southeast Asian company bought about $2.5 billion worth of servers from Super Micro in 2024 and 2025, and at least $510 million worth reached China in roughly three weeks from late April to mid-May 2025 alone.
Prosecutors say the group falsified records naming the intermediary as the servers' end user, repackaged equipment in unmarked boxes as it passed through Taiwan and Southeast Asia, and staged nonworking replica servers for audits, transferring serial-number stickers from genuine machines onto the fakes. Sun allegedly served as the scheme's fixer, helping stage dummy servers in December 2025 and misleading a Commerce Department inspector about servers already shipped to China. FBI official James Barnacle said at the indictment that the defendants allegedly fabricated documents, staged bogus equipment to pass audit inventories and used a pass-through company to conceal their activities.
Super Micro itself has not been charged. After the indictment in March the company said it had placed the employees on administrative leave, ended its contract with Sun and was cooperating with the investigation; on the plea, it pointed to its earlier statements that the indictment has not affected its business operations. (GSM, via Reuters)
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于纽约 Pearl Street 500号的 Daniel Patrick Moynihan 联邦法院正门，本案在此审理。图片来源：Ken Lund 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0（Wikimedia Commons）。Photo: Entrance of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street, New York, where the case is being heard. Photo by Ken Lund, CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons).
