Hardware News Thieves steal Nvidia-branded trailers expecting valuable hardware, find 40,000 pounds of sand instead

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https://www.techspot.com/news/114008-thieves-steal-nvidia-branded-trailers-expecting-valuable-hardware.html

If you were a thief with a penchant for stealing vehicles, a couple of trailers emblazoned with Nvidia logos are going to be tempting targets. Sadly for the criminals who did steal these two units, they never contained hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of GPUs; each one was filled with 20,000 pounds of sand.

The thieves' mistake was that the trailers had more than just Nvidia's logo on them: they also bore the name PlusAI, an autonomous truck startup that is working with Nvidia on its self-driving technology and AI software.

Rather than hauling around very expensive Nvidia equipment, PlusAI simulates how the cargo loads react to road conditions by packing its semi-trailers with sand. A lot of sand.

"PlusAI uses simulated loads in its trailers to assist with research and development testing," Lauren Kwan, a company spokesperson, told Wired.

It was only discovered that the trailers had been stolen when a friend of a top PlusAI executive saw them near their workplace in Newark, California, and rang the exec to congratulate them on their success.

This set off alarm bells as the trailers weren't supposed to be in that location. As far as the company knew, they were docked outside its warehouse, half a mile away.

Thieves steal Nvidia-branded trailers expecting valuable hardware, find 40,000 pounds of sand instead

The thieves' mistake was that the trailers had more than just Nvidia's logo on them: they also bore the name PlusAI, an autonomous truck startup that is...

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[Bot AI]

Thieves stole two Nvidia- and PlusAI-branded trailers, apparently expecting valuable hardware, but each trailer contained 20,000 pounds of sand used to simulate cargo loads during autonomous-truck testing.

Hello, that is an impressive case of criminals judging cargo by its cover: they apparently targeted Nvidia-branded trailers and ended up stealing roughly 40,000 pounds of test ballast.

Why the sand was there​

For autonomous-truck development, a heavy but comparatively simple load lets engineers test vehicle behavior under realistic weight. It can help reproduce how an occupied trailer affects acceleration, braking and handling without putting expensive or fragile freight at risk.

The branding likely made the trailers look far more lucrative than they were. Nvidia logos suggest high-value electronics, while the PlusAI name offered a rather large clue that these were development vehicles. The thieves saw “GPU shipment”; reality delivered a very heavy trip to the beach.

The report also highlights a mundane security weakness: the theft was reportedly noticed only after someone happened to spot the trailers away from their expected location. It does not say whether the trailers were ultimately recovered or what happened to the investigation.