Federal prosecutors arrested a San Gabriel, California business owner this week on a three-count indictment alleging he smuggled more than $300 million in export-controlled servers to China. The mechanics are familiar from a run of similar cases: buy in the United States, ship to a country that needs no license, re-export. What is new is the vocabulary. The Justice Department's announcement describes the hardware as GPUs used for Super Intelligence (SI) applications, and uses that phrase throughout. The word "AI" does not appear.
Key takeaways
- Greg Lui, 38, owner of Earthmade Computer Inc., faces conspiracy to violate export control law, outbound smuggling, and conspiracy to commit money laundering β a combined maximum of 50 years.
- Earthmade received more than $176 million from two Malaysia-based shipment companies between January and October 2024, according to the indictment returned on Sept. 29.
- Commerce's export enforcement office, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI all investigated, and the DOJ's framing of GPUs as "Super Intelligence technology" marks a shift in how chip export enforcement is described.
How the alleged route worked
The scheme described in the indictment relies on a jurisdictional gap rather than any technical trick. Malaysia and Singapore do not require a Commerce Department license for these servers; China does. Lui and co-conspirators allegedly bought high-end servers from US manufacturers while submitting false documentation misrepresenting the end user and destination, shipped them through freight forwarders to Southeast Asia, then had partners there re-export the hardware to Chinese buyers.
Prosecutors cite a specific sequence. In January 2024, Lui allegedly emailed a conspirator that a Malaysian transshipment company wanted 70 servers carrying export-restricted GPUs, attaching a compliance form that spelled out the very restrictions at issue. Later that month he submitted a purchase order to a US manufacturer for 27 of those servers at roughly $7.6 million, which were shipped from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur with a packing list stating they could not go to China without a license. By March, a co-conspirator had emailed a Malaysian government official confirming those 27 servers had been transshipped to a China-based buyer.
Court documents reviewed by The Register list the hardware as servers containing Nvidia A100 and H100 accelerators alongside PNY GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 cards, and tie 92 servers shipped from San Francisco International Airport to Kuala Lumpur to Earthmade orders, with the onward consignee listed as a Chinese customer. The same documents allege Lui directed a US front company to list a fabricated recipient, and that he bought identity documents in 2021 for use in the scheme.
Why the consumer cards matter
The presence of GeForce RTX 4090 and 5090 cards in a national security indictment is the detail worth sitting with. These are retail gaming parts, sold through consumer channels at consumer volumes, and their appearance alongside datacenter A100s and H100s shows how wide the controlled perimeter has grown. An enforcement regime originally aimed at a handful of datacenter SKUs now has to account for hardware that moves through ordinary distribution.
That breadth is also what makes transshipment hard to police. The alleged conduct here was not a single shipment but a sustained brokerage relationship, and the government's own numbers suggest the margin: $176 million in payments received against roughly $300 million in brokered sales.
The language shift
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg called SI the defining technology of the era and framed the National Security Division's job as protecting the American advantage in the chips that power it. FBI Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky said the investigation found Lui had allegedly sold the Chinese government hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of American Super Intelligence technology.
Neither official used "artificial intelligence" or AGI. The substitution is not cosmetic β it sets the terminology that will appear in charging documents, agency guidance and compliance manuals, and it frames GPU exports as a strategic-capability question rather than a commercial technology one. It follows other signals of a tightening posture, including a federal advisory urging AI providers to alter answers for suspected model distillers.
Outlook
The case was built by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security Office of Export Enforcement, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI, and is being prosecuted out of the Central District of California with the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. A separate prosecutor is handling civil and criminal forfeiture of seized property, which suggests the government expects to recover assets regardless of the trial outcome. Nothing here is proven: an indictment is an allegation, and Lui is presumed innocent.
FAQ
What exactly is Greg Lui charged with?
Three counts: conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and the Export Administration Regulations, outbound smuggling, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The maximum penalties are 20 years on the export conspiracy count, 20 years on the money laundering count and 10 years on the smuggling count.
Why were Malaysia and Singapore involved?
Neither country requires a Commerce Department license for the servers in question, so shipping there is legal on its face. The alleged violation is the onward re-export to China, combined with false documentation given to US manufacturers about where the hardware would end up.
Is "Super Intelligence" an official US government term now?
The Justice Department used it consistently in this announcement, abbreviated as SI, and three separate officials used it in their quoted statements. It is not a statutory definition, but its use across a press release and prosecutor commentary signals the framing the government is adopting for chip export enforcement.
