Smugglers were caught trying to transportNvidiaGPUs hidden within a shipment of live lobsters.Nvidiais one of the most popular brands for gaming graphics cards, with some GPUs selling for thousands of dollars.
Nvidia has been producing high-end graphic cards for over two decades, placing itself as one of the best manufacturers of gaming GPUs. In 2018,Nvidia released a new platform for real-time ray tracing and AI technologiesfor games called Nvidia RTX, offering developers a new way to provide physically accurate graphics for their games. Ray-traced lighting and ambient occlusion increase the quality of graphics by adding more realistic lights and shadows, resulting in a more immersive experience for players.
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The Hong Kong authorities intercepted a van transporting 70 Nvidia Quadro graphics cards hidden within a 617-pound shipment of live lobsters. The smugglers were caught as they crossed the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge to enter mainland China in hopes of reselling their Nvidia graphic cards, valued at over $70,000. The smuggled GPUs aren’t even thebest Nvidia graphic cardsavailable on the market, such as the high-end Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, but rather old Nvidia Quadro K2200 cards that were initially released in 2014.
Despite their valuation at over $70,000 by Hong Kong authorities, the smuggled Nvidia graphics cards wouldn’t sell at this high price. The current market value of Nvidia Quadro K2200 GPUs is around $60, which would amount to a total of $4,200 had the smugglers managed to sell their entire stock of these outdated graphic cards. One of the reasons the smugglers tried to importNvidia GPUsfrom Hong Kong to mainland China may have been to dodge China’s 13% sales tax, as Hong Kong doesn’t have any sales taxes. However, the Nvidia Quadro K2200 GPUs are far from being the most sought-after graphic cards on the market, and the reason behind their choice to smuggle these GPUs remains a mystery.
Alongside its high-end graphic cards, Nvidia provides players with a cloud gaming service called GeForce Now that allows Windows and Mac users to play games remotely on a virtual computer, streaming games at up to a 4K resolution at 60 FPS. Microsoft announced it would be bringing theXbox library of PC games to Nvidia GeForce Nowplatform to ease the monopoly concerns regarding its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, guaranteeing players will access some of their games even without an active Game Pass subscription.
