A truckload of consumer graphics cards were stolen in San Francisco, as an extended semiconductor shortage drives chip prices higher.
Video card and motherboard maker EVGA said that the graphics cards were stolen from a truck en route from San Francisco to its Southern California distribution center.
It was not disclosed how many of the EVGA GeForce RTX 30-Series Graphics Cards were taken.
"These graphics cards are in high demand and each has an estimated retail value starting at $329.99 up to $1959.99 MSRP," EVGA product manager Jacob Freeman said in a forum post.
With supply shortages, scalpers have been able to command significantly higher prices.
Freeman warned that it is illegal to “buy or receive” stolen goods, as well as “conceal, sell, withhold, or aid in concealing selling or withholding” that property. He added that the company would not honor warranties or upgrades on the stolen products - although with many turning to scalpers to acquire new GPUs, end consumers may not know they are buying stolen hardware.
It is not known if the thieves plan to resell the hardware, or alternatively use it in a cryptocurrency mining rig.
Last year, around $340,000 worth of GeForce RTX 3090 GPUs were stolen from MSI's factory in China.
Consumers face many months of waiting to buy new graphics cards from authorized retailers, amid a lengthy global chip shortage.
The supply issues have also impacted the data center sector. "We are starting to see major problems in the supply of data center components," Mike Norris, CEO of IT reseller Computacenter said this September.
The month before, the CEO of cloud networking company Arista Networks, Jayshree Ullal, said that the shortage was "the worst I've seen it."
And there have been some pretty big ups and downs in my career of several decades... and I think it's also going to be prolonged."
Ullal added: "Everything from copper shortages to wafer starts to assembly to manpower, people, logistics, freight. Just about every aspect of it is challenged, too."
Semiconductor manufacturers have said that some of the most extreme shortages may be alleviated in the months to come, but the wider supply shortage could last years.
