PlusAI trailers stolen in Fremont held 40,000 pounds of sand, not Nvidia chips

PlusAI uses sand to mimic real freight conditions in its testing, which is why two trailers left its Fremont warehouse loaded with 40,000 pounds of it and carrying Nvidia branding for the chips used in its self-driving technology. The thieves broke open the backs, found nothing of value, and left them; a friend of PlusAI's vice president of legal spotted them parked outside a Newark office, and police recovered them later that day. Lauren Kwan, the company's vice president of marketing, said that in the years since its 2016 founding it had never had a tractor or trailer stolen, calling it a first.

That first for PlusAI sits inside a broader pattern the article lays out. In June, investigators with the Cook County Sheriff's Office in Illinois recovered two trailers outside Chicago, including one holding $300,000 in copper wires stolen from Alabama and $1 million in data center equipment reported stolen in Florida. In December 2024, thieves took more than $7 million worth of Nvidia computer chips from a California warehouse a day before delivery to a Supermicro facility in San Jose. Overhaul has tracked more than $150 million in AI equipment cargo losses, with AI-related theft up 34% since 2024 and the total value of goods stolen up more than 110% over the same period.

The economics are what pull criminals in, according to Overhaul's David Warrick, who points to steep demand for memory chips and infrastructure buildout as worldwide AI spending is projected to reach $2.7 trillion this year by some estimates. The scale of the heists points to organized crime rather than petty theft, and Warrick describes international syndicates that run like big corporations and probe supply chains for weak points. Whether the industry can close those gaps may hinge on tracking standards that Kwan says do not yet exist industry-wide; Overhaul's own answer has been to use AI to certify driver's licenses against "ghost carriers" who pose as legitimate freighters, an effort Warrick frames as an arms race.