US charges California man over $300M in smuggled Nvidia chips
Export enforcement leads: federal prosecutors have put a price tag on the China chip-smuggling trade, while Suno pushes its music model into spoken word.
US authorities arrested Greg Lui, a 38-year-old California tech executive, on charges of smuggling more than $300 million worth of export-controlled computer servers containing Nvidia GPUs to China. Prosecutors say Lui, who runs Earthmade Computer Inc. in the City of Industry, shipped servers through Malaysia and Singapore between 2023 and 2024 — routes that require no US license for the transit leg, only for the destination — using false paperwork, then wired the proceeds back; the indictment includes conspiracy to violate export controls, outbound smuggling, and money-laundering conspiracy, each carrying up to 20 years. The Justice Department says Earthmade received $176 million from two Malaysia-based shippers in a ten-month window in 2024, and one purchase order alone covered 27 H100-bearing servers for roughly $7.6 million. The case lands the same week Bloomberg reported experts pointing at gaps in Nvidia's own due diligence as smuggling cases pile up — the arrest says the US now treats this as a crime wave with names, not a paperwork problem. What to watch: whether the case reaches further up the chain — buyers, shippers, or the companies whose servers moved.
Suno launched Speech, a public beta that generates spoken voiceovers and background music together as one track. The company calls it the first audio model that produces voice and music as a single cohesive output; the music is optional and toggleable off, and users can either describe what they want ("a pirate captain rallying his crew") or paste a custom script, adjusting voice gender, speech style, and variability, with a maximum duration of around eight minutes. Suno is honest that it's rough — "beta really does mean beta," CPO Jack Brody wrote, noting accents that wander and dramatic pauses that run very dramatic — and the timing is not accidental: with copyright suits from Sony, Universal, and the RIAA still hanging over the music generator, diversifying from songs into general audio gives Suno a second act that isn't litigated.
Should export-control cases like this one reach the chip makers whose due diligence prosecutors keep questioning? Tell us in the comments.
