Federal prosecutors have charged three Chinese nationals and an American with illegally smuggling advanced NVIDIA computer chips to China, as detailed in court documents following an arrest in California. Cham Li, also known as "Tony Li," was arrested in connection with a Florida indictment that accuses him and three others of exporting restricted graphics processing units (GPUs) without the necessary licenses. These chips are utilized in artificial intelligence (AI) and supercomputing applications, which U.S. officials restrict due to national security concerns.

The defendants allegedly operated through Janford Realtor LLC, a shell company based in Tampa, to conceal shipments from September 2023 to July 2025. Prosecutors claim that the group sent approximately 400 NVIDIA A100 GPUs and 50 H200 GPUs via Malaysia and Thailand to obscure the chips' final destination in China. The individuals charged include Hon Ning Ho of Tampa, Brian Curtis Raymond of Huntsville, Alabama, and Jing Chen of Tampa, alongside Li. The indictment alleges that they submitted false export documents and created fraudulent contracts to evade detection.

China has announced ambitions to become a global leader in AI by 2030, prompting the U.S. Commerce Department to impose export restrictions on advanced computing chips in October 2022 to prevent the technology from being utilized for military or surveillance purposes. According to court documents, wire transfers from Chinese company bank accounts totaling over $3 million financed the purchases. Homeland Security Investigations seized 50 NVIDIA H200 GPUs in Tampa. The defendants face significant legal consequences, including up to 20 years in prison for export control violations, 10 years for smuggling, and 20 years for conspiracy to commit money laundering, with each export violation potentially incurring a $1 million fine.