Nvidia Chip Smuggling to China Exposed in Jensen Huang Biography

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's alleged affair has brought scrutiny to suspicions that the company's chips were routed to China via Southeast Asia. Biographer Stephen Witt claims a Malaysian data center may have used "fake servers" to swap out real chips, which were then smuggled to China, evading U.S. oversight. Witt, author of "The Thinking Machine," told the New York Times' Hard Fork podcast that the facility in Johor, Malaysia, is heavily guarded, making external verification difficult. He noted that Malaysia lacks a large domestic AI plan, suggesting Nvidia chips there likely flow to China, with methods including relabeling shipments or renting out computing power to Chinese entities. Witt detailed smuggling tactics like using heat guns to remove labels and installing dummy servers to mask the removal of genuine equipment. He stated the U.S. Commerce Department lacks enforcement power overseas, and while Megaspeed, a 2023 Nvidia partner, operates a real data center, its ultimate clients and funding remain unknown.