Supermicro

Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Company type	Public
Industry	Technology
Founded	November 1, 1993 (1993-11-01) in San Jose, California, U.S.
Founder	Charles Liang, Chiu-Chu Liu (Sara)
Headquarters	San Jose, California , United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Charles Liang (CEO), Chiu-Chu Liu (Sara) (Treasurer)
Products	High-efficiency servers, server management software, storage solutions
Number of employees	5000+ (2023)
Website	www.supermicro.com

Super Micro Computer, Inc., commonly known as Supermicro, is a U.S.-based technology firm headquartered in San Jose, California. It ranks among the top manufacturers of high-efficiency, high-performance servers and also offers server management software along with storage solutions. Its product lineup caters to sectors such as enterprise data centers, cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, 5G networks, and edge computing applications. Established on November 1, 1993, Supermicro maintains manufacturing operations in Silicon Valley, the Netherlands, and Taiwan’s Science and Technology Park.

History

Supermicro was founded in 1993 by Taiwanese-American entrepreneur Charles Liang along with his wife, Chiu-Chu Liu (Sara), who serves as the company’s treasurer. Liang earned a Bachelor of Science from the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and a Master of Science from the University of Texas at Arlington. He holds multiple patents related to server technology and previously held the roles of president and chief design engineer at Micro Center Computer.

In its founding year, Supermicro forged a significant partnership with UK-based IT solutions firm Boston Limited, enabling access to markets across the UK and Europe. This alliance led to several technological advancements such as the P5EXTRA motherboard during the 1990s, the introduction of the 1U Twin server in 2006, and high-performance GPU computing platforms by 2009.

Growth in manufacturing: domestic and overseas

By 1996, Supermicro established its Taiwanese manufacturing branch Ablecom, overseen by Charles Liang’s brothers Steve and Bill Liang. The Liang family collectively retains majority ownership exceeding 80%. Two years later, in 1998, the company broadened its European presence by setting up a subsidiary in the Netherlands.

Further European expansion occurred in 2010 when Supermicro launched a system integration and logistics center also located in the Netherlands. In 2012, following an investment of $99 million, it opened a facility within Taiwan’s Science and Technology Park.

In September 2014, Supermicro shifted its corporate headquarters to the former Mercury News building situated in North San Jose, California, rebranding it as the Supermicro Green Computing Park. By 2017, the campus featured a newly completed manufacturing plant spanning 182,000 square feet that achieved LEED Gold certification. The site expanded again in September 2021 with an additional manufacturing facility dedicated to advanced storage and server hardware production. Currently, roughly 2,400 employees work at the San Jose location.

Looking ahead to February 2025, Supermicro announced plans for a third manufacturing campus in California focused on liquid-cooled data center servers. The majority of its server production remains domestic; however, the company has explored extending manufacturing capacity to Mississippi and Texas in response to U.S. government incentives promoting onshore production.

Products

In 2008, Supermicro became one of ten computing firms participating in the National Nuclear Security Administration's Hyperion initiative at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This partnership aimed to advance high-performance computing capabilities to support the U.S. nuclear arsenal maintenance without underground testing, focusing on enhancing petaFLOP/s scale computing and storage availability.

By 2012, Supermicro introduced new 2U and 4U/Tower server platforms. Four years later, in 2016, it delivered 30,000 MicroBlade servers to a Silicon Valley data center, which achieved an impressive power usage effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.06, likely associated with Intel’s facility.

April 2020 marked the debut of the H12 A+ Superblade from Supermicro, the first blade server platform utilizing AMD’s second-generation Epyc processors. In the following year, the company expanded its offerings with over 100 server SKUs powered by 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors across various product lines including Hyper, SuperBlade, Twin Product Family, Ultra, CloudDC, GPU, Telco/5G, and Edge servers.

In 2023, Supermicro collaborated with Rakuten Symphony to supply Open RAN solutions and storage infrastructure tailored for cloud-native mobile operators. The same year saw the introduction of liquid-cooled servers designed in alignment with ESG initiatives, achieving roughly a 40% reduction in energy consumption compared to conventional air-cooled data centers. Additionally, demand increased significantly for AI-optimized systems equipped with NVIDIA GPUs.

By July 2024, Supermicro secured a substantial contract alongside Dell to provide half of the servers for Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI. This partnership led to the establishment of a 750,000-square-foot data center in Memphis hosting the Colossus supercomputer. Furthermore, Supermicro supplied servers for Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas liquid-cooled AI data centers.

On December 25, 2024, Supermicro announced a joint venture with Taiwanese developer Guo Rui to construct an AI data center in Taiwan fully powered by renewable energy sources.

In May 2025, Supermicro forged a $20 billion agreement with Saudi Arabian data center operator DataVolt to deliver GPU platforms and rack systems supporting AI campuses in both Saudi Arabia and the United States. Concurrently, the company launched its Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC-2) technology and Data Centre Building Block Solutions (DCBBS) to advance AI data center infrastructure.

Board of directors

As of May 2025, Supermicro’s board comprises co-founders Charles Liang, Sara Liu, and Wally Liaw alongside members Daniel W. Fairfax, Tally Liu, Sherman Tuan, Judy Lin, Robert Blair, Susie Giordano, and Scott Angel. Giordano joined in August 2024 and chaired a special committee responsible for an internal audit initiated due to concerns raised by EY. In April 2025, Yitai Hu—formerly senior vice president of corporate development—was appointed chief legal officer and general counsel.

Financials

Supermicro raised $64 million during its initial public offering in March 2007 by selling eight million shares at $8 each. Its stock is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SMCI.

In 2009, the company reported revenue near $720 million from computer server sales and related products while employing close to 1,100 staff members. By fiscal year 2023, revenue had grown to $7.1 billion with a global workforce exceeding 5,000 employees.

Following a notable surge in its stock price that boosted market capitalization from $4.5 billion at the end of 2022 to $60 billion by March 2024, Supermicro replaced Whirlpool within the S&P 500 index. It entered the Fortune 500 list at position number 498 in June 2024 and advanced to rank 292 by 2025.

Supermicro was added to the Nasdaq-100 index on July 22, 2024—taking Walgreens Boots Alliance’s place—but was subsequently removed from this index in December 2024.

Controversy

In 2006, Supermicro admitted guilt to a felony charge and incurred a $150,000 penalty for breaching a U.S. embargo on computer system exports to Iran. The company revealed it had implemented an export control program in 2004 after becoming aware of the investigation.

In November 2021, Supermicro’s partnership with Fiberhome Telecommunication Technologies obtained a contract to provide servers to Xinjiang Bingtuan for purposes described as 'public safety,' connected to surveillance operations in Xinjiang.

Allegations of Server Manipulation

On October 4, 2018, Bloomberg Businessweek published claims that the Chinese People's Liberation Army coerced Supermicro’s Chinese subcontractors into embedding microchips with hardware backdoors into servers sold to U.S. government agencies—including the CIA and Department of Defense—as well as commercial customers. Supermicro denied any knowledge of such investigations or compromised hardware. Multiple sources and named companies disputed the report.

A follow-up by Bloomberg on October 9, 2018, alleged that altered Supermicro servers were found within a U.S. telecommunications company through hardware implants located on Ethernet connectors. In response, Supermicro conducted a review of its motherboards and subsequently filed a statement with the SEC affirming confidence that no malicious chips were introduced during manufacturing.

In February 2021, Bloomberg Business reported that U.S. intelligence agencies had utilized these modified servers to collect intelligence on China, but cautioned that only a limited number of targets were affected despite alleged compromises dating back to 2011.

Financial Reporting Practices

In August 2020, Supermicro reached a settlement with the SEC concerning accounting irregularities from 2014 to 2017 involving the company and its former CFO, agreeing to pay $17.5 million in fines. The company was briefly removed from Nasdaq in 2018 following nearly two years of delayed financial disclosures.

2024 Hindenburg Research Short-Seller Report

In 2024, short-seller Hindenburg Research accused Supermicro of persistent accounting misconduct and rehiring executives previously implicated. The report also alleged circumvention of U.S. export controls through shipments of advanced technology to Russia, echoing a 2021 Washington Post investigation into server sales linked to Moscow’s internet censorship operations. Supermicro responded by affirming compliance with relevant laws and human rights standards. Additionally, Hindenburg pointed out purportedly "circular" financial relationships involving suppliers Ablecom and Compuware, entities partially owned by the CEO’s brothers. Following this disclosure, Supermicro postponed its annual report submission.

One month later, the U.S. Department of Justice initiated a preliminary investigation; subpoenas were issued by both the DOJ and SEC requesting documents related to these claims.

In October 2024, auditor Ernst & Young resigned due to concerns over internal control deficiencies, board independence issues, and accounting practices. Supermicro established an independent special board committee supported by external legal counsel to examine these matters; their review found no proof of wrongdoing. The board commenced a search for a new CFO and subsequently appointed BDO Global as the company’s new auditor.

On February 25, 2025, Supermicro submitted its annual report shortly before the extended deadline, disclosing significant weaknesses in internal financial controls along with plans to strengthen accounting personnel and upgrade IT infrastructure.