Super Micro Computer, Inc.
Supermicro
TypePublic
IndustryInformation technology
Founded1993 (1993)
Founders
  • Charles Liang
  • Sara Liu
Headquarters
San Jose, California
,
United States
Number of locations
11
Key people
  • Charles Liang (Chairman, President and CEO)
  • David Weigand (CFO)
  • Don Clegg (SVP of Worldwide Sales)
  • George Kao (SVP of Operations)
Products
  • BigTwin
  • Ultra
  • SuperBlade
  • Rack servers
  • GPU servers
  • 5G/Telco
RevenueIncrease US$7.12 billion (2023)
Increase US$761 million (2023)
Increase US$640 million (2023)
Total assetsIncrease US$3.67 billion (2023)
Total equityIncrease US$1.97 billion (2023)
Number of employees
5,126 (2023)
Websitesupermicro.com
Footnotes / references
Financials as of June 30, 2023.[1]

Super Micro Computer, Inc., dba Supermicro, is an information technology company based in San Jose, California. It has manufacturing operations in the Silicon Valley, the Netherlands and at its Science and Technology Park in Taiwan. Founded on November 1, 1993, Supermicro is one of the largest producers of high-performance and high-efficiency servers.[2] It also provides server management softwares, and storage systems for various markets, including enterprise data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G and edge computing.[3][4][5][6][7][8]

Supermicro's stock trades under the ticker symbol SMCI[9] on the Nasdaq exchange. Its fiscal year 2023 revenues were $7.1 billion and employs over 5,000 globally.[1]

History

In 1993, Supermicro began as a 5 person operation run by Charles Liang alongside his wife and company treasurer, Chiu-Chu Liu, known as Sara.[10] Prior to founding Supermicro, Liang earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. Liang holds several patents for server technology and was previously the president and chief design engineer of Micro Center Computer, a motherboard design and manufacturing company, from July 1991 to August 1993.[11]

International expansion, initial public offering

In 1996, the company opened a manufacturing subsidiary, Ablecom, in Taiwan, which is run by Charles's brother, Steve Liang and Bill Liang. Charles Liang and his wife own close to 31 percent of Ablecom, while Steve Liang and other members of the family own close to 50 percent.[3] In 1998, Supermicro opened a subsidiary in the Netherlands.[10]

In 2006, Supermicro pleaded guilty to a felony charge and paid a $150,000 fine due to a violation of a United States embargo against the sale of computer systems to Iran.[12] In a plea agreement, it was acknowledged that Supermicro became aware of the investigation in February 2004 and set up an export-control program that same year.[12]

On March 8, 2007, Supermicro raised $64 million in an initial public offering, selling 8 million shares at $8 a share.[13]

In 2009, Supermicro sold about $720 million worth of computer servers and related products and employed almost 1,100 people.[14]

In May 2010, Supermicro further expanded into Europe with the opening of its system integration logistics center in the Netherlands.[15]

In January 2012, Supermicro opened its Taiwan Science and Technology Park, totaling $99 million in construction costs.[16]

Server tampering allegation

On October 4, 2018, Bloomberg Businessweek published a report, citing unnamed corporate and governmental sources, which claimed that the Chinese People's Liberation Army had forced Supermicro's Chinese sub-contractors to add microchips with hardware backdoors to its servers. The report claimed that the compromised servers had been sold to U.S. government divisions (including the CIA and Department of Defense) and contractors and at least 30 commercial clients.[17][18][19] Supermicro denied the report, stating that they had not been contacted by government agencies and were unaware of any investigation.[20][21][22][23] The report was also disputed by sources and companies who were named therein.[22][21] On October 9, 2018, Bloomberg issued a second report, alleging that Supermicro-manufactured datacenter servers of an unnamed U.S. telecom firm had been compromised by a hardware implant on an Ethernet connector.[24][25][26]

On October 22, 2018, Supermicro announced that "despite the lack of any proof that a malicious hardware chip exists" it was reviewing its motherboards for potential spy chips in response to the article.[27] Supermicro filed a letter with the Securities and Exchange Commission stating that it was "confident" that "no malicious hardware chip had been implanted" during the manufacture of its motherboards.[28]

In February 2021, Bloomberg Business reported that despite Supermicro having been compromised since 2011, U.S. intelligence kept it a secret to gather intelligence about China and warned only a small number of potential targets.[29]

Recent developments

In November 2021, the joint venture of Super Micro Computer and Fiberhome Telecommunication Technologies won a contract for supplying servers to Xinjiang Bingtuan for 'public safety purposes', which is associated with the suppression of Uyghurs ethnic group and construction of a surveillance system in the province of Xinjiang.[30][31][32][33]

On December 21, 2021, the Washington Post, together with Russian dissident authors Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, accused the company of supplying 30 servers to the Moscow control center for Internet censorship in Russia. Supermicro responded with: “Supermicro complies with applicable laws and regulations, and our policies are consistent with international principles of human rights. We act appropriately to ensure this is the case.”[34]

Products

In 2012, Supermicro debuted its 2U and 4U/Tower platforms.[35]

In 2016, Supermicro sent 30,000 MicroBlade servers to a Silicon Valley data center with a claimed power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.06.[36] While Supermicro did not name the customer, it was likely Intel, who opened a similar data center in November 2015 with a PUE of 1.06.[37]

In April 2020, Supermicro announced the H12 A+ Superblade, a blade server based on the 2nd gen Epyc 1P family of CPUs. It was the first blade server platform to implement AMD's Epyc processors.[38]

In April 2021, Supermicro introduced over 100 application-optimized server product SKUs using (new at the time) 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, including Hyper, SuperBlade, the Twin Product Family (BigTwin, TwinPro, and FatTwin), Ultra, CloudDC, GPU, Telco/5Gand Edge servers.[39]

In 2023, Supermicro partnered with Rakuten Symphony on high-performing Open RAN technologies and storage systems for operators of cloud-based mobile services.[40] Later in the year, Supermicro debuted servers with liquid cooling, focusing on ESG policies. The servers save approximately 40% of the power expended on air-cooled data centers.[41] In June 2023, Supermicro saw increased demand for its large language model optimized AI systems, featuring NVIDIA chips.[42]

Corporate affairs

In September 2014, Supermicro moved its corporate headquarters to the former Mercury News headquarters in North San Jose, California, along Interstate 880, naming the campus Supermicro Green Computing Park. The main building was designed by Warren B. Heid in the modernist style, which was common for commercial buildings in the 1960s, and built by the Carl N. Swenson Company. During the time it served as the Mercury News's headquarters, the main building was expanded from 185,000-square-foot (17,200 m2) to 312,000 square feet (29,000 m2).[43] Until recently, a bronze sculpture, Chandelier by John Jagger, hung from the ceiling of an elliptical loggia at the entrance. The loggia is distinguished by a series of metal columns and the moat that surrounds it.[44][45] In 2017, the company completed a new 182,000 square-foot manufacturing building on the campus, which was designed to meet LEED gold certification.[46][47] The company expanded its San Jose campus in September 2021 with a manufacturing facility for advanced storage and server equipment. Supermicro was reported to have 2,400 people working in San Jose.[48]

Recognition

In 2014, the GSIC Center Tokyo Institute of Technology’s TSUBAME-KFC supercomputer, from Supermicro, was ranked first on the Green500 list.[49]

In 2022, the company’s 2U 2-Node server solution won Product of the Year in the Machine Learning/AI category at the NAB Show.[50] Supermicro was again awarded NAB’s Product of the Year in 2023, this time being for the company's Liquid Cool AI Development Platform.[51]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Super Micro Computer, Inc. 2023 Annual Report (Form 10-K)". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. August 28, 2023.
  2. ↑ Seetharaman, Deepa; Dotan, Tom (May 29, 2023). "The AI Boom Runs on Chips, but It Can't Get Enough". The Wall Street Journal.
  3. 1 2 Vance, Ashlee (November 23, 2008). "Super Micro Computer: A One-Man, or at Least One-Family, Powerhouse". New York Times. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  4. ↑ Bailey, Brandon (October 15, 2010). "Charles Liang, founder, Super Micro Computer". Mercury News. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  5. ↑ Morgan, Timothy Prickett (September 12, 2017). "Surfing On Tech Waves With Supermicro". The Next Platform. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  6. ↑ Cutress, Dr. Ian (May 13, 2020). "The Supermicro H11DSi Motherboard Mini-Review: The Sole Dual EPYC Solution". Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  7. ↑ Cole, Arthur (May 2, 2022). "Advice for deploying AI in production environments".
  8. ↑ Sharma, Ray. "Supermicro Intros Multi-Node Solutions for 5G, IoT, and Edge Application".
  9. ↑ "NASDAQ SMCI".
  10. 1 2 Richaud, Nicolas (October 5, 2018). "Qui est Supermicro, l'entreprise au coeur de l'affaire des puces espionnes chinoises ?".
  11. ↑ Much, Marilyn (March 30, 2023). "Super Micro Computer's CEO Made Money Grow On Trees". www.investors.com.
  12. 1 2 "Super Micro Pleads Guilty in Iran Export Case". Wall Street Journal.
  13. ↑ "Super Micro Computers IPO raises $64 mln, below range". Reuters. March 28, 2007.
  14. ↑ "Mercury News interview: Charles Liang, founder, Super Micro Computer". October 15, 2010.
  15. ↑ Black, Doug (June 2010). "Supermicro expands into Europe and Asia".
  16. ↑ Hsu, Aaron (January 6, 2012). "Super Micro unveils science park in Taiwan".
  17. ↑ Robertson, Jordan; Riley, Michael (October 4, 2018). "The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on October 4, 2018.
  18. ↑ Osborne, Charlie. "Apple, Amazon deny claims Chinese spies implanted backdoor chips in company hardware: report". ZDNet. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
  19. ↑ "Chinese spies reportedly inserted microchips into servers used by Apple, Amazon, and others". The Verge. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
  20. ↑ "The Big Hack: Statements From Amazon, Apple, Supermicro, and the Chinese Government". Bloomberg News. October 4, 2018. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
  21. 1 2 "Bloomberg stands by Chinese chip story as Apple, Amazon ratchet up denials". Ars Technica. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
  22. 1 2 Osborne, Charlie. "Security researcher source in Supermicro chip hack report casts doubt on story". ZDNet. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
  23. ↑ "FBI director on whether Apple and Amazon servers had Chinese spy chips: 'Be careful what you read'". CNBC. October 10, 2018.
  24. ↑ "New evidence of hacked Supermicro hardware found in U.S. telecom". Bloomberg.com. October 9, 2018. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
  25. ↑ "A new twist in Bloomberg's 'spy chip' report implicates U.S. telecom". TechCrunch. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
  26. ↑ Kennedy, Patrick (October 9, 2018). "Yossi Appleboum on How Bloomberg is Positioning His Research Against Supermicro". STH. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  27. ↑ "Supermicro says it's hunting for Chinese spy chips on motherboards". South China Morning Post. October 23, 2018. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  28. ↑ Prang, Allison (October 22, 2018). "Super Micro Computer Denies Malicious Chip Report, Says It Is Conducting Review Anyway". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
  29. ↑ Robertson, Jordan; Riley, Michael (February 12, 2021). "The Long Hack: How China Exploited a U.S. Tech Supplier". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved February 17, 2021.
  30. ↑ "Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security "Internet + Government Service" Platform Project Server Equipment Procurement". Qixin.com. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  31. ↑ Eikelenboom, Siem; Bruijn, Annebelle de (September 8, 2021). "Omstreden studies van Erasmus MC-onderzoeker met dna Oeigoeren worden teruggetrokken". Follow the Money (in Dutch). Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  32. ↑ "Technologie-overdracht aan China". Argos (in Dutch). December 10, 2021. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  33. ↑ "Addition of Certain Entities to the Entity List; Revision of Existing Entries on the Entity List". Federal Register. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  34. ↑ Andrei Soldatov; Irina Borogan (December 22, 2021) [2021-12-21]. "How Western tech companies are helping Russia censor the Internet". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. ISSN 0190-8286. OCLC 1330888409.
  35. ↑ Rath, John (December 5, 2012). "Supermicro Debuts Hyper-Speed Servers".
  36. ↑ Moss, Sebastian. "Supermicro puts 30,000+ blades in [Intel's] PUE 1.06 data center".
  37. ↑ Smolaks, Max. "Intel builds in-house data center with PUE of 1.06".
  38. ↑ Trader, Tiffany (April 14, 2020). "AMD Launches Three New High-Frequency Epyc SKUs Aimed at Commercial HPC". www.hpcwire.com.
  39. ↑ Coughlin, Tom (April 6, 2021). "Intel's 3rd Generation Xeon Processor Storage And Memory". Forbes.
  40. ↑ "Supermicro and Rakuten Symphony Extend Their Collaboration and Offer Complete 5G, Telco, and Edge Solutions For Cloud Based Open RAN Mobile Networks" (Press release). PR Newswire.
  41. ↑ Thomas, Eve (June 1, 2023). "Supermicro addresses technology industry focus on ESG policy". www.verdict.co.uk.
  42. ↑ Kim, Tae. "AI Will Be Bigger Than Industrial Revolution, Says Leading AI Executive". Barron's.
  43. ↑ "History of 750 Ridder Park Drive". 750 Ridder Park Drive. History San José. Archived from the original on October 1, 2018. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
  44. ↑ "The Loggia Pendant". 750 Ridder Park Drive. History San José. Archived from the original on June 18, 2018. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
  45. ↑ Pizarro, Sal (September 26, 2014). "Pizarro: A bittersweet farewell to the old Mercury News building". San Jose Mercury News. Bay Area News Group.
  46. ↑ Staff, BF (March 8, 2017). "Supermicro Expands Silicon Valley Manufacturing HQ". Business Facilities. Retrieved October 12, 2017.
  47. ↑ "Super Micro opens 182000 square foot expansion near San Jose HQ". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved October 5, 2018.
  48. ↑ Avalos, George (September 17, 2021). "Super Micro expands north San Jose campus with new manufacturing building".
  49. ↑ "Supermicro Supercomputer Ranked #1 in Green500". Tom's IT Pro. December 4, 2013. Archived from the original on October 12, 2017. Retrieved October 12, 2017.
  50. ↑ "Supermicro Wins the NAB 2022 Product of the Year Award". HPC.
  51. ↑ "NAB Show Announces Winners of the 2023 Product of the Year Award" (Press Release).
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