Overview
- Bloomberg, cited by Reuters, reported that Bangkok-based OBON Corp was the indictment’s unnamed buyer and that some Supermicro servers later reached Alibaba.
- Neither OBON nor Alibaba is named or charged in the public indictment, and Alibaba says it has no ties to Supermicro, OBON, or any brokers mentioned.
- The Justice Department in March charged three Supermicro-linked figures with routing U.S.-made servers through Taiwan and Southeast Asia to be repackaged and moved into China, totaling at least $2.5 billion.
- Supermicro says it launched an internal review and put co-founder Yih-Shyan Liaw on leave, and U.S. Commerce officials requested a hold on all shipments to the buyer identified as Company-1.
- NVIDIA says partners must follow export rules, its B300 server is not officially sold in China, and tight supply has pushed reported China prices near $1 million versus roughly $550,000 in the U.S.