Senators ask to pause NVIDIA exports
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators asked the Commerce Department to suspend some NVIDIA AI chip export licenses to China and intermediaries, saying Huang’s assurances about chip diversion are contradicted by reporting — the move ramps up export‑control scrutiny for AI hardware. (tomshardware.com)
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D‑Mass.) and Jim Banks (R‑Ind.) sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on March 23–24 urging immediate pausing, suspension or reconsideration of all active export licenses for advanced Nvidia AI chips and server systems. (storage.printfriendly.com) The letter specifically asked the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to pause and conduct a full review of licenses covering shipments destined for China and intermediaries in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. (banking.senate.gov) The senators’ call follows a U.S. indictment accusing three men of conspiring to smuggle roughly $2.5 billion worth of Nvidia‑powered servers into China, an investigation that named Supermicro co‑founder Yih‑Shyan “Wally” Liaw as one of the defendants. (bloomberg.com) Court filings and reporting cited in the senators’ letter say portions of the scheme involved repackaging and routing shipments through Southeast Asian intermediaries, and Supermicro confirmed a co‑founder resigned after charges were filed. (nbcnews.com) Warren and Banks told Commerce that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s prior public statements — including that customers “monitor themselves very carefully” and would not divert chips — were contradicted by contemporaneous reporting and could have misled U.S. licensing decisions. (storage.printfriendly.com) The Commerce Department previously defended a January decision to permit controlled H200 sales to China as strengthening the U.S. technology ecosystem, a position the senators flagged while requesting BIS review. (storage.printfriendly.com)
