Nvidia chip worth $11 million was stolen

Six pallets of Nvidia hardware worth approximately $11 million, ordered for servers in the USA, were received and transported to an unknown location. The theft was noticed 15 days later.

Nvidia hardware, which is at the center of the artificial intelligence and high-performance computing industry, was the subject of one of the most remarkable theft cases in the global supply chain. A shipment of 6 pallets of chips, planned to be delivered from California to Texas, disappeared before reaching the destination. According to initial findings, the disappearance of hardware with a total value of $11.4 million revealed control vulnerabilities in hardware logistics.

Planned Disappearance on the San Bernardino Line

According to official records, in the incident that took place on August 29, transportation personnel received the cargo from the facility in California in accordance with the planned schedule. However, immediately after setting off, the truck changed its route to a completely different direction instead of the designated destination route. While it was determined that the team that committed the theft took many long breaks along the way during the transportation process, the vehicle was lost in San Bernardino County due to insufficient tracking infrastructure. The real problem in the logistics chain became apparent only in mid-September when it was discovered that the shipment had been stolen.

Underground Market and Threat to Hardware Supply

Although the breakdown of the components in the lost pallets is not fully disclosed, experts emphasize that if the equipment in question is smuggled to markets outside the United States, it could yield close to 20 million dollars. Organized theft cases of increasingly valuable high-performance graphics processors have recently become a global trend. As a matter of fact, last year, an Nvidia chip worth $7.5 million was stolen within the borders of the USA, and in recent months, a shipment of Zotac RTX 5090 worth $500,000 was targeted in Brazil. Such vulnerabilities in the supply chain continue to disrupt enterprise hardware deliveries while fueling an uncontrolled sales network in parallel markets.