The sudden departure of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang may have been driven by widespread illicit exports of advanced AI accelerators to China, according to analysts at SemiAnalysis. The semiconductor research firm estimates that more than 1.5 gigawatts of restricted Nvidia hardware, potentially equivalent to 1.5 million GPUs, has reached the country despite U.S. export controls. This estimate excludes processors specifically developed to comply with U.S. rules, such as the H20 or H800.
SemiAnalysis' Accelerator Model, which tracks production and destinations, suggests the scale of these diversions is massive. The estimated power capacity represents computing infrastructure comparable to, or exceeding, the scale of xAI's entire Colossus operation. The firm noted that the U.S. Department of Commerce has reached a similar conclusion regarding the scale of unauthorized shipments, though the exact number of illegal accelerators or their specific product generations remain undisclosed.
The report highlights two major legal cases involving alleged smuggling. In one instance, prosecutors charged Supermicro co-founder Wally Liaw, Taiwan sales executive Steven Chang, and contractor Willy Sun in March 2026 for diverting $510 million worth of equipment to Alibaba via Southeast Asia. The defendants allegedly used substitute servers and transferred identification labels to conceal the hardware's true destination during audits. In a separate case, authorities in Taiwan are investigating nine individuals associated with Nvidia, Albatron, Chief Telecom, Flying Tiger, and Supermicro for allegedly using shell companies and forged documents to send 74 Nvidia B300-based servers to China.
Reports have also linked Huang's personal conduct to the controversy. Amidst reports regarding an alleged extramarital affair with Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed and an alleged Chinese intelligence asset, one report claims Ms. Huang was personally responsible for facilitating the smuggling of $7.5 billion of Nvidia AI hardware into China. This shipment reportedly included approximately 240,000 GPUs, primarily H100 and H200 models.
SemiAnalysis analysts speculate that the scale of these violations may explain why Huang's personal conduct became a major issue at this time. The firm suggests that some members of the U.S. intelligence community may have sought his removal because he opposed more aggressive restrictions. This timing coincides with congressional efforts to advance the Remote Access Security Act (RASA), which passed the House of Representatives on January 12.
