Supermicro

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Super Micro Computer, Inc.
Supermicro
Company typePublic
Nasdaq: SMCI
IndustryInformation technology
Founded1993; 31 years ago (1993)
Founders
  • Charles Liang (President, CEO, Chairman of the Board)
  • Sara Liu (Sr. Vice President of Operations, Treasurer and Director)
Headquarters
United States Edit this on Wikidata
Key people
  • David Weigand (Chief Financial Officer)
  • Don Clegg (Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales)
  • George Kao (Senior Vice President of Operations)
RevenueIncrease $5.2 billion (2022)[1]
Websitewww.supermicro.com

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 a provider of high-performance and high-efficiency servers, server management softwares, and storage systems for various markets, including enterprise data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G and edge computing.[2][3][4][5][6][7]

Supermicro’s stock trades under the ticker symbol SMCI[8] on the Nasdaq exchange. Supermicro fiscal year 2022 revenues were $5.2 billion and Supermicro has 4,607 employees globally.[1]

History

San Jose Mercury News headquarters in 2009.

Formation and initial public offering

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. In 1996, the company opened a manufacturing subsidiary in Taiwan, Ablecom, which is run by Charles’s brother, Steve 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.[2] In 1998, Supermicro opened a subsidiary in the Netherlands.[9]

In 2006, Supermicro plead 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.[10]

On March 8, 2007, Supermicro raised $64 million in an initial public offering, selling 8 million shares at $8 a share.[11]

In 2009, Supermicro sold about $720 million worth of computer servers and related products and employed almost 1,100 people.[12]

International expansion

In May 2010, Supermicro further expanded into Europe with the opening of its system integration logistics center in the Netherlands.[13]

In January 2012, Supermicro opened its Taiwan Science and Technology Park, totalling $99 million in construction costs.[14] Later in 2012, Supermicro debuted it’s 2U and 4U/Tower platforms.[15]

In 2014, the GCIC Center Tokyo Institute of Technology’s TSUBAME-KFC supercomputer, from Supermicro, was ranked first on the Green 500 list.[16]

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. In 2017, the company completed a new 182,000 square-foot manufacturing building on the campus.[17][18] 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).[19] 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.[20][21]

In 2016, Supermicro sent 30,000 MicroBlade servers to a Silicon Valley data center with a claimed PUE (power usage effectiveness) of 1.06.[22] 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.[23] A subsidiary of Supermicro, Super Micro Computer B.V., started a joint venture with Fiberhome Telecommunication Technologies Co. Ltd., a Chinese company that is on a U.S. government blacklist for alleged involvement in human rights violations and the suppression, imprisonment and spying on Uyghurs in Xinjiang.[24][25]

In 2017, the company's (at the time) newly-constructed manufacturing facility in San Jose was designed to meet LEED gold certification.[17]

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.[26][27][28]

Supermicro denied the report, stating that they had not been contacted by government agencies and were unaware of any investigation.[29][30][31][32] On October 22 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.[33]

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.[34][35][36]

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.[37]

Recent developments

In February 2021, Bloomberg Business reported that Supermicro had been compromised since 2011, U.S intelligence keeping it a secret to gather intelligence about China and warning only a small number of potential targets.[38]

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.[39]

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.[40][41]

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.[42]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "2022 10-K Report".
  2. ^ a b Vance, Ashlee (November 23, 2008). "Super Micro Computer: A One-Man, or at Least One-Family, Powerhouse". New York Times. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  3. ^ Bailey, Brandon (October 15, 2010). "Charles Liang, founder, Super Micro Computer". Mercury News. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  4. ^ Morgan, Timothy Prickett (September 12, 2017). "Surfing On Tech Waves With Supermicro". The Next Platform. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  5. ^ Cutress, Dr. Ian (May 13, 2020). "The Supermicro H11DSi Motherboard Mini-Review: The Sole Dual EPYC Solution". Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  6. ^ Cole, Arthur (May 2, 2022). "Advice for deploying AI in production environments".
  7. ^ Sharma, Ray. "Supermicro Intros Multi-Node Solutions for 5G, IoT, and Edge Application".
  8. ^ "NASDAQ SMCI".
  9. ^ Richaud, Nicolas (October 5, 2018). "Qui est Supermicro, l'entreprise au coeur de l'affaire des puces espionnes chinoises ?".
  10. ^ "Super Micro Pleads Guilty in Iran Export Case". Wall Street Journal.
  11. ^ "Super Micro Computers IPO raises $64 mln, below range". Reuters. March 28, 2007.
  12. ^ "Mercury News interview: Charles Liang, founder, Super Micro Computer". October 15, 2010.
  13. ^ Black, Doug (June 2010). "Supermicro expands into Europe and Asia".
  14. ^ Hsu, Aaron (January 6, 2012). "Super Micro unveils science park in Taiwan".
  15. ^ Rath, John (December 5, 2012). "Supermicro Debuts Hyper-Speed Servers".
  16. ^ "Supermicro Supercomputer Ranked #1 in Green500". Tom's IT Pro. December 4, 2013. Retrieved October 12, 2017.
  17. ^ a b Staff, BF (March 8, 2017). "Supermicro Expands Silicon Valley Manufacturing HQ". Business Facilities. Retrieved October 12, 2017.
  18. ^ "Super Micro opens 182000 square foot expansion near San Jose HQ". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved October 5, 2018.
  19. ^ "History of 750 Ridder Park Drive". 750 Ridder Park Drive. History San José.
  20. ^ "The Loggia Pendant". 750 Ridder Park Drive. History San José. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
  21. ^ Pizarro, Sal (September 26, 2014). "Pizarro: A bittersweet farewell to the old Mercury News building". San Jose Mercury News. Bay Area News Group.
  22. ^ Moss, Sebastian. "Supermicro puts 30,000+ blades in [Intel's] PUE 1.06 data center".
  23. ^ Smolaks, Max. "Intel builds in-house data center with PUE of 1.06".
  24. ^ "Technologie-overdracht aan China". Argos (in Dutch). Retrieved December 12, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  25. ^ "Addition of Certain Entities to the Entity List; Revision of Existing Entries on the Entity List". Federal Register. Retrieved December 12, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  26. ^ 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.
  27. ^ Osborne, Charlie. "Apple, Amazon deny claims Chinese spies implanted backdoor chips in company hardware: report". ZDNet. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
  28. ^ "Chinese spies reportedly inserted microchips into servers used by Apple, Amazon, and others". The Verge. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
  29. ^ "The Big Hack: Statements From Amazon, Apple, Supermicro, and the Chinese Government". Bloomberg News. October 4, 2018. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
  30. ^ "Bloomberg stands by Chinese chip story as Apple, Amazon ratchet up denials". Ars Technica. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
  31. ^ Osborne, Charlie. "Security researcher source in Supermicro chip hack report casts doubt on story". ZDNet. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
  32. ^ "FBI director on whether Apple and Amazon servers had Chinese spy chips: 'Be careful what you read'". CNBC. October 10, 2018.
  33. ^ "Supermicro says it's hunting for Chinese spy chips on motherboards". South China Morning Post. October 23, 2018. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  34. ^ "New evidence of hacked Supermicro hardware found in U.S. telecom". Bloomberg.com. October 9, 2018. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
  35. ^ "A new twist in Bloomberg's 'spy chip' report implicates U.S. telecom". TechCrunch. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
  36. ^ Kennedy, Patrick (October 9, 2018). "Yossi Appleboum on How Bloomberg is Positioning His Research Against Supermicro". STH. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  37. ^ 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.
  38. ^ Robertson, Jordan; Riley, Michael (February 12, 2021). "The Long Hack: How China Exploited a U.S. Tech Supplier". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved February 17, 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  39. ^ Avalos, George (September 17, 2021). "Super Micro expands north San Jose campus with new manufacturing building".
  40. ^ "Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security "Internet + Government Service" Platform Project Server Equipment Procurement". Qixin.com. Retrieved December 12, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  41. ^ 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.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  42. ^ 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.[please check these dates]

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Super Micro Computer.
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