Thieves stole an Nvidia-branded trailer filled with nothing but 20,000 pounds of sand

Thieves stole two trailers from an autonomous trucking company, including one emblazoned with Nvidia’s logo.

20,000 pounds of sand in each truck.

The trailers were reported stolen overnight on Thursday from PlusAI, which uses Nvidia chips in its self-driving systems.

Rather than carrying Nvidia’s valuable AI chips, known as GPUs, each trailer was filled with sand.

PlusAI vice president of marketing Lauren Kwan said the company uses sand to simulate cargo weight during test drives.

Kwan said that hours after the company discovered the trailers had been stolen, a friend of a PlusAI employee spotted them parked near another company’s office, unaware they had been taken.

PlusAI employees then confirmed the trailers’ location and called the police.

Fremont Police told Business Insider that the two trailers were subsequently recovered by Newark Police that afternoon. “This case remains under investigation, and no one has been arrested as of now,” Fremont Police told Business Insider on Friday.

Kwan said PlusAI suspects the Nvidia branding may have attracted the thieves.

She said the trailers appeared to have been opened, and nothing was stolen or damaged. “In the 10 years of the company being around, we’ve never had something like this happen before,” she said, adding that the company is now considering additional security measures.

The incident comes as valuable AI hardware has increasingly become a target for thieves.

According to supply chain security firm Overhaul, which has tracked more than $150 million in AI equipment losses to date, thefts involving data center and computing equipment have increased by 34% since 2024.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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