Two Chinese nationals have been arrested and charged with illegally shipping millions of dollars’ worth of powerful AI chips to China, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Tuesday.
The DOJ alleged that over the last three years ALX Solutions, a company it said was run by Chuan Geng and Shiwei Yang, exported the chips from the US to China without the required licences.
Court documents seen by the BBC allege the shipments included Nvidia’s H100 graphics processing units (GPUs), which have become a key focus of US export controls aimed at stopping China purchasing the cutting-edge technology.
The case shows that smuggling its chips “is a nonstarter,” an Nvidia spokesperson said.
Nvidia sells products to well-known partners who help to ensure that all sales comply with US export control rules, she added.
“Even relatively small exporters and shipments are subject to thorough review and scrutiny, and any diverted products would have no service, support or updates.”
According to court documents, California-based ALX Solutions had three known employees: Mr Geng handled the firm’s finances, Ms Yang was its secretary, while its chief executive was not named in the documents.
The DOJ said the three individuals exercised “full decision-making authority and shipment coordination” for the firm.
Mr Geng was a permanent resident of California, and Ms Yang, was an “illegal alien” who had overstayed her visa, a DOJ statement said.
Business records showed the company sent goods several times from the US to shipping firms in Singapore and Malaysia between October 2022 and July 2025, the DOJ said, noting that both countries are used as transit hubs to “conceal illegal shipments” to China.
ALX never received payments from these shipping firms and would instead be paid by other companies based in Hong Kong and China. These included a $1m (£750,000) payment from a China-based firm in January 2024, said the DOJ.
Last December, ALX sent a shipment with export-restricted computing chips – including Nvidia’s H100 and GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs – which was checked by US customs, according to court documents.
“Neither ALX Solutions nor Geng or Yang applied for or obtained a license from the Commerce Department,” the documents said.
In one 2023 invoice valued at more than $28.4m, ALX allegedly declared to Super Micro Computer, a supplier of Nvidia chips, that the devices were ordered for a Singapore-based customer.
But a US export control officer in Singapore could not verify that the chips arrived in the country and the company named did not exist at the listed location, the court document said.
“It appears that ALX Solutions shipped the Nvidia products to different end users.”
Super Micro did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC but said in a statement to the Reuters news agency that it was “firmly committed to compliance with all US export control regulations.”
It added that it would not comment on an ongoing legal case but would cooperate with authorities in any such proceedings.
Ms Yang was arrested on Saturday while Mr Geng surrendered himself to the authorities soon after, the DOJ said.
The pair appeared in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday, the DOJ said. If found guilty they could face up to 20 years in prison.
ALX Solutions does not appear to have a website, according to court documents. A website for ALX-Cloud, which specialises in cloud computing services, states that it is a subsidiary of the company.
The BBC was unable to immediately locate lawyers for Mr Geng and Ms Yang but has contacted ALX-Cloud to request a statement.
Additional reporting by Peter Hoskins