By Thomas Brewster
Publication Date: 2025-11-20 17:35:00
Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang has been keen to sell more chips to China, but Trump has said he won’t allow sales of its most powerful processors. Some appear to have found ways around the export controls. (Photo illustration by Cheng Xin/Getty Images)
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A U.S.-based businessman and Nvidia partner was illegally selling the chip giant’s most powerful AI processors and HP supercomputers to Chinese customers, according to a federal indictment filed earlier this month.
Huntsville, Alabama-based Brian Raymond, founder of AI infrastructure company Bitworks, is accused of allegedly working with three others to sell the chips to unspecified Chinese companies registered in Hong Kong. His co-defendants include two Chinese nationals and one U.S. citizen born in Hong Kong. In total, the men sold as many as 350 Nvidia chips and ten HP supercomputers for nearly $4 million, the DOJ claimed. The indictment was first reported by independent outlet Court Watch.
The Biden Administration enacted laws in 2022 to require that anyone selling chips for AI systems and supercomputers obtain a license from the Bureau of Industry and Security, making the export of Nvidia’s most powerful chips to China near impossible. According to the DOJ, the four men sold an array of Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs), including H100s, H200s and A100s, which have become massively popular in AI and supercomputing applications and are among those that are effectively banned from export to China. The DOJ…
