Supermicro

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]

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).[17] 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.[18][19] In 2017, the company completed a new 182,000 square-foot manufacturing building on the campus, which was designed to meet LEED gold certification.[20][21] 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.[22]

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.[23][24][25] Supermicro denied the report, stating that they had not been contacted by government agencies and were unaware of any investigation.[26][27][28][29] The report was also disputed by sources and companies who were named therein.[28][27] 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.[30][31][32]

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.[33] 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.[34]

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.[35]

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.[36][37][38][39]

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.[40]