Business 4 min read By Alice Ashford
Super Micro says Megaspeed was never its customer
Super Micro, the server maker co-founded by Charles Liang, a longtime friend of Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, has told Fortune that Singapore-based Megaspeed was never one of its customers, as chip-smuggling charges and parallel probes continue to spread across several jurisdictions.
Super Micro Computer has told Fortune that Megaspeed, a company at the centre of investigations into the diversion of advanced artificial intelligence chips to China, was never one of its customers. The server manufacturer denies any business relationship with the firm, even as its own co-founder faces criminal charges in the United States and the company's shares have come under pressure.
The denial comes against a backdrop of serious allegations. Wally Liaw, a Super Micro co-founder, was arrested in March on chip-smuggling charges and has pleaded not guilty; his trial has been pushed back to March 2027. His co-defendant, Willy Sun, pleaded guilty in October. According to the charges, roughly $2.5 billion worth of servers equipped with Nvidia H200 and B200 graphics processing units were routed to China through a front company based in Southeast Asia.
Super Micro has said it considers itself a victim of the scheme rather than a participant. An internal investigation, the company says, found no awareness among senior management of the diversion. It also says it maintains a compliance programme and cooperates with the authorities. The company has disclosed a grand jury subpoena, along with inquiries from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, and foreign regulators. Super Micro shares fell nearly 4 per cent this week.
The name of Jensen Huang is inevitably drawn into the story, though not because of any alleged wrongdoing on his part. Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, is a longtime friend of Charles Liang, the Super Micro co-founder. Huang resigned as Nvidia's leader after reports of an affair surfaced. Neither he, nor Nvidia, nor Super Micro has been charged with wrongdoing in connection with the smuggling case. Alice Huang, a former Megaspeed executive, is unrelated to Jensen Huang, a point the reporting makes clear.
Alice Huang is a central figure in separate probes. Singapore police and the country's Customs authority have opened investigations into Megaspeed and Alice Huang, and some authorities believe she acted as a Chinese spy, according to the reporting. Singapore has said that Super Micro offered only limited cooperation, and that the issue was first raised with US authorities on 7 July 2025. The US Attorney's Office in Manhattan is reportedly examining smuggling links to entities associated with Alice Huang. The outcome of the Singapore and US inquiries into her and Megaspeed has not been made public.
The case has also reached Taiwan, where prosecutors have indicted nine people over 130 Super Micro servers fitted with Nvidia B300 chips. The Taiwanese case alleges forged data-centre inspection records and that 74 of the servers reached China. The charges there are forgery and breach of trust, since exporting AI chips to China is not in itself a crime under Taiwanese law. Neither Nvidia nor Super Micro has been charged in the Taiwan proceedings.
What remains unclear is whether any business link between Megaspeed and Super Micro exists beyond the company's categorical denial. Until the investigations in Singapore, Taiwan and the United States conclude, the extent of any connection, and of any knowledge within the companies involved, is unresolved.
Source: fortune.com
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