Lawmakers have demanded the US commerce department suspend Nvidia’s licences to export AI chips to China and south-east Asian countries after the discovery of a large smuggling scheme.
In a letter to commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, Republican Senator Jim Banks and Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate banking committee, urged “immediate action” related to the “large-scale diversion of advanced American AI chips to China” via south-east Asia.
The request from the senators came on the heels of Friday’s indictment of Wally Liaw, a co-founder of Supermicro who is accused of conspiring with two others to violate US export controls by allegedly shipping large amounts of advanced Nvidia chips to China via other countries.