Nov. 21 (UPI) — Federal authorities have arrested four people, including two Chinese nationals, on accusations of scheming to illegally export cutting-edge Nvidia technology with artificial intelligence uses to Beijing, which prosecutors said seeks to be the AI world leader by the end of the decade.
Federal authorities in Tampa, Fla., on Wednesday arrested 34-year-old Hong Kong-born U.S. citizen Hong Ning Ho, also known as Matthew Ho, and 45-year-old Jing Chen, also known as Harry Chen, who was in the United States on a F-1 nonimmigrant student visa.
Brian Curtis Raymond, 46, of Huntsville, Ala., and 38-year-old Cham Li, also know as Tony Li, a Chinese national, were also arrested, though when was not clear.
Federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment — unsealed Wednesday but publicized by the Justice Department on Thursday — that from September 2023 until their arrests, the defendants conspired to illegally export NVIDIA graphics processing units to China through Malaysia and Thailand.
“The indictment unsealed yesterday alleges a deliberate and deceptive effort to transship controlled NVIDIA GPUs to China by falsifying paperwork, creating fake contracts and misleading U.S. authorities,” John Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for National Security said in a statement.
The court documents statement that they attempted four separate exports consisting of hundreds of GPUs. The first two shipments saw 400 Nvidia A100 GPUs being exported to China between October 2024 and January. The other two shipments of 50 Nvidia H200 GPUs and 10 Hewlett Packard Enterprises supercomputers with Nvidia H100 GPUS were intercepted by authorities.
In return for the shipments, the defendants allegedly received more than $3.89 million in wire transfers, according to the indictment.
The indictment states they used Tampa-based Janford Realtor, owned by Ho and Li, as a front company to buy the goods and export them to China.
Federal prosecutors alleged that despite being labeled a real estate company, it was involved involved in property transactions.
The court document accuses Raymond of supply the GPUs to Ho through his Alabama-based electronics company.
According to federal prosecutors, China is seeking to become the world leader in AI by 2030 and seeks to use the technology for military modernization efforts, including designing and testing its weapons of mass destruction as well as surveillance tools.