Nov 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has

charged four people in a scheme to illegally export Nvidia

AI chips to China, prompting a key House Republican to

call for urgent passage of a chip-tracking bill on Thursday.

"China recognizes the superiority of American AI innovation

and will do whatever it must to catch up," said John Moolenaar,

the chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on China. "That's

why the bipartisan Chip Security Act is urgently needed."

The legislation, which Moolenaar introduced in May and has

30 cosponsors, would require location verification for chips,

make it mandatory for chipmakers to report and share information

about potential diversion, and look at additional ways to stop

U.S. chips from ending up in the wrong hands.

The case highlights the challenges Washington faces in

enforcing its sweeping restrictions on high-tech exports to

China, which are designed to hobble Beijing's military

development and keep the U.S. ahead on technology. China has

criticized U.S. export curbs as part of a campaign to weaponize

economic and trade issues.

The indictment, which the U.S. Department of Justice

announced on Thursday, charges two U.S. citizens and two Chinese

nationals with conspiring to export Nvidia GPUs to China without

required licenses. The defendants allegedly created fake

contracts and provided false documentation to ship the chips to

third countries, knowing they were destined for China.

They then exported 400 Nvidia A100 GPUs to China through

Malaysia between October 2024 and January 2025, according to the

indictment. Law enforcement stopped attempts to export 10

Hewlett-Packard supercomputers with Nvidia H100 GPUs and 50

separate Nvidia H200 GPUs through Thailand, the U.S. Department

of Justice said.

In the Florida case, the conspiracy included the use of a

Tampa company as a front to purchase and export chips, and

nearly $4 million in wire transfers from China to fund the

scheme, the Justice Department said.

A lawyer for one defendant declined to comment and a

lawyer for a second defendant did not immediately respond to a

request for comment. The other defendants could not immediately

be reached.