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Taiwan prosecutors investigate 3 people over Nvidia chip smuggling to China

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Authorities in Taiwan are investigating three people on suspicion of using forged documents to smuggle computer servers containing advanced Nvidia chips to China, prosecutors said Thursday.

The high-performance AI servers were made by the San Jose, California-based Super Micro Computer Inc. The three people are accused of conspiring to purchase the servers in Taiwan, then use the false documents for export declarations to smuggle the servers to China, Taiwan’s Keelung District Prosecutors Office said in a statement.

Prosecutors did not identify the three people. Nvidia and Super Micro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While the suspects were aware of U.S. export restrictions that blocked such exports to mainland China, Macao and Hong Kong, they went ahead anyway for “huge profits,” the prosecutors’ statement said.

In March, U.S. authorities charged a senior vice president of Super Micro and two others associated with the company with conspiring to smuggle billions of dollars worth of high-performance servers containing Nvidia chips to China, breaching U.S. export control measures.

Beijing bans 4 New Zealand lawmakers from entering China because they visited Taiwan

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Beijing banned four New Zealand lawmakers from traveling to China for a year and demanded they apologize because they visited Taiwan on a parliamentary trip, according to a message from the Chinese embassy conveyed via parliamentary officials and shown to The Associated Press on Thursday. China has hit lawmakers from other countries with sanctions related to contact with Taiwan before, but it's the first time for New Zealand parliamentarians, the government in Wellington said. Beijing has been increasing pressure in recent years on the democratically governed island that it claims as its own territory. Two lawmakers reached by the AP on Thursday rejected the demand for an apology, while the other two could not be immediately reached. New Zealand's government said it would express concern about the travel bans to Beijing. The elected officials visited Taipei in May, as New Zealand parliamentarians have done “for decades,” a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.
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