Overview
- Houston-area businessman Alan Hao Hsu and his company pleaded guilty to a multi‑million‑dollar scheme to funnel NVIDIA H100/H200 GPUs to Chinese buyers, with court filings citing more than 7,000 chips moved or attempted between October 2024 and May 2025.
- Investigators detailed diversion tactics including shell companies, falsified bills of lading, transshipment through Malaysia and Thailand, a February 2025 seizure in Atlanta, and relabeling of GPUs observed by an undercover agent at a New Jersey warehouse.
- On the same day as the plea, President Trump said he will permit NVIDIA to sell H200 chips to China under conditions the Commerce Department is finalizing, with the White House indicating a 25% U.S. take on approved exports and a similar approach for AMD and Intel.
- Senate Democrats and national-security voices warned that authorizing H200 sales could erode U.S. advantages and aid Chinese AI firms, while experts stressed that prosecutions target clear violations regardless of any future licensing regime.
- Recent cases continue, including Tampa indictments of two defendants accused of routing chips to front groups tied to possible military end users, as prosecutors frame GPU controls as a national‑security imperative and note enforcement resource strains.