NEW YORK CITY, New York: A contractor linked to Super Micro Computer has admitted his role in a scheme to illegally send computer servers containing advanced Nvidia artificial intelligence chips to China, according to a federal court filing.

Ting-Wei "Willy" Sun pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to four counts, including conspiracies to violate US export controls, smuggle goods from the US, defraud the country and obstruct justice.

Prosecutors charged Sun and two others associated with Super Micro in March with conspiring to divert about $2.5 billion worth of US AI technology to China in violation of export laws.

The scheme began around October 2023, when Sun and others conspired to export servers from a US manufacturer, widely believed to be Super Micro, to China without the required licenses, according to the indictment.

The US has restricted sales of advanced AI chips to China, citing national security concerns. The indictment said Nvidia's B200, H100 and H200 graphics processing units, as well as servers containing them, were subject to the restrictions.

The United States and China are competing for dominance in AI, with both investing billions of dollars in technology viewed as critical to economic growth, national security and military capabilities.

The indictment described Sun as a broker and "fixer" who facilitated orders and took steps to conceal the scheme. According to the indictment, he helped stage "dummy" servers in December 2025 and made false statements to a US Department of Commerce officer during an inspection of supposedly stored servers that had already been diverted to China.

Also indicted were Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw and Ruei-Tsang "Steven" Chang, who was a sales manager at the company's Taiwan office. Sun was a contractor.

Super Micro, based in California, referred to its previous statements when asked about Sun's guilty plea. The company has said it was not named as a defendant in the indictment and that the case had no impact on its business operations. It terminated Sun and cut ties with the other defendants earlier this year.

A lawyer for Sun declined to comment.

A lawyer for Liaw, who co-founded Super Micro in 1993 and joined its board in 2023, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chang's lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.