Thieves stole an Nvidia-branded truck filled with just 20,000 pounds of sand—and it points to Big Tech’s $150 million AI hardware theft headache

A theft that looked like a jackpot for AI chip hunters turned out to be a mess of sand. PlusAI said two trailers disappeared overnight from its Fremont, California warehouse last week, including one marked with Nvidia branding. When police found them later, the cargo was exactly the sort of thing nobody wants to steal: 40,000 pounds of sand.

The company uses that sand on purpose. Each trailer carried about 20,000 pounds, enough to mimic the weight of real freight for testing its self-driving trucking systems. Workers noticed the trailers missing the next morning, and a friend of PlusAI’s vice president of legal later spotted them parked outside an office in Newark and sent over a photo. Police told the company the thieves had broken into the back, found nothing valuable, and walked away.

For PlusAI, the odd little caper was a first. Lauren Kwan, the company’s vice president of marketing, said it has never had a tractor or trailer stolen since its 2016 founding. Nvidia declined to comment, which is probably the least surprising part of the whole story.

The broader pattern is anything but funny. Fortune points to a wave of AI-related cargo theft that has already hit copper wires, data center equipment and Nvidia chips. Overhaul says it has tracked more than $150 million in AI equipment losses, with AI-related theft up 34% since 2024 and the value of stolen goods up more than 110% over the same stretch. In other words, the sand truck is a prank with a very expensive shadow behind it.