Nvidia’s Huang slams partners over China chip smuggling but won’t give up on Beijing

Nvidia’s top executive called for better oversight from the company’s business partners on Saturday after Taiwan authorities arrested three people accused of trying to send banned computer chips to China through fake paperwork.

Jensen Huang, who leads the world’s most valuable company, spoke to reporters in Taipei just hours after arriving from the United States. When asked about the arrests, he made clear that his company expects its partners to follow the law.

“We insist our partners are compliant,” Huang told journalists at Songshan airport. “We hope that they will enhance and improve their regulation compliance and prevent that from happening in the future.”

The three people Taiwan detained allegedly lied on shipping documents for computer servers made by Super Micro Computer. American rules put in place in 2022 ban companies from selling this type of hardware to China, Hong Kong, and Macau without special permission.

Super Micro’s servers contain Nvidia chips, put into larger systems. These systems are utilized by data centers to train and run AI software.

Super Micro under regulatory spotlight, both in US and Taiwan

The regulators want clarity over its cross-border shipment operations and reliable internal checking.

The legal troubles for Super Micro (NASDAQ:SMCI) began in March when U.S. prosecutors charged three people connected to the company. Yih-Shyan Liaw, a co-founder and board member who controls $464 million worth of Super Micro shares, was arrested along with contractor Ting-Wei Sun, while Taiwan sales manager Ruei-Tsang Chang was labeled a fugitive. Shares fell 33 percent the day the charges became public.

Now Taiwan authorities have detained three more people for allegedly forging documents, though officials have not named them.

However, the stock has paradoxically bounced back, jumping nearly 22 percent over the past month to trade around $35.58. Gain appears tied to broader excitement in the semiconductor sector and optimism ahead of Nvidia’s earnings

After showing concern about one of the biggest partners, Huang talked about the future of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). He told that the upcoming product called Vera Rubin is expected to come out in the third quarter of this year. He sounded pretty upbeat about it. He said

“Vera Rubin is going to be the most successful generation so far,” Huang said. He pointed out that Nvidia used to work with just one or two major AI companies, but now partners with all of them. The company expects this to be its biggest and fastest product rollout ever. The new technology is built for AI systems that can work on their own and handle complex tasks.

Huang also addressed an elephant in the room

During a Wednesday earnings call, he had mentioned that new central processing units from Nvidia could tap into a $200 billion market. When reporters asked Saturday if that number included China, his answer was simple.

“I would think so,” Huang said.

The comment revealed how Nvidia is trying to walk a fine line. American officials have cleared the company to sell its H200 chip to China, but Chinese authorities have not signed off yet. They appear to be pushing their own domestic chip makers instead.

President Donald Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing earlier this month. Huang went along as part of the American group. But the talks did not produce any deals that would let Nvidia start selling H200 chips in China right away.

Washington approved about ten Chinese companies to buy the H200, which is Nvidia’s second-strongest AI chip. But not a single chip has been delivered yet.

“H200 has been licensed to ship to China,” Huang explained at the airport. “It would be terrific to be able to serve that market. The Chinese market is very important. It’s very large, of course.”

The same day Huang was in China for those diplomatic meetings, officials there announced a ban on a different Nvidia product, the RTX 5090D V2 graphics card, as reported by Cryptopolitan previously.