Houston Man Pleads Guilty In $160M Nvidia AI Chip Smuggling Ring To China—
Three men, including one from the Houston area, have been charged with smuggling advanced AI technology to China in violation of U.S. export laws, the Department of Justice announced.
Alan Hao Hsu, 43, of Missouri City, Texas, and his company Hao Global LLC pleaded guilty on October 10 to unlawful export of at least $160 million worth of restricted Nvidia H100 and H200 Tensor Core GPUs — high-performance chips critical for artificial intelligence and large language models.
In exchange, Hsu and his company received more than $50 million in wire transfers from China. Federal authorities seized over $50 million in Nvidia hardware and cash. Hsu faces up to 10 years in prison at sentencing on February 18, 2026; his company faces fines up to twice the gross gain plus probation.
Two alleged co-conspirators from China were also arrested:
Benlin Yuan, 58, a Canadian citizen and CEO of a Virginia-based subsidiary of a Beijing company, was arrested on November 28 in Sterling, Virginia. He is charged with conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act and faces up to 20 years if convicted.
