May 8 (Reuters) – A firm linked to Thailand’s national AI initiative is suspected of helping smuggle billions of dollars’ worth of Super Micro Computer servers containing advanced Nvidia chips to China, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The intermediary buyer was an unnamed Southeast Asian firm referred to by prosecutors as “Company-1,” which Bloomberg identified as Bangkok-based OBON Corp, citing sources.
Alibaba Group Holding was among the end customers, the report added.
In an emailed statement to Reuters, an Nvidia spokesperson said the company expects its ecosystem partners to adhere to strict compliance at every level, stating that it will continue working with the government to enforce the rules.
Separately, Alibaba told Reuters it has no business ties with Super Micro, OBON or any third-party brokers cited in the indictment, and said banned Nvidia chips have never been used in its data centres.
Super Micro did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment, while OBON could not be immediately reached.
In March, the U.S. Justice Department charged Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan Liaw, sales manager Ruei-Tsang Chang and contractor Ting-Wei Sun with running a scheme to route U.S.-made servers through Taiwan to Southeast Asia, where they were repackaged into unmarked boxes and smuggled into China.
Prosecutors alleged at least $2.5 billion in U.S. AI technology was moved, including more than $500 million shipped between April and mid-May 2025.
Some of the $2.5 billion servers sold to OBON allegedly went to Alibaba, the report added.
In 2022, the United States banned the export of high-end chips from Nvidia to China amid concerns that they could be used for military purposes, but approved sales of Nvidia’s second-most powerful H200 chips in January this year under certain conditions.
Separately, Super Micro shareholders sued the Silicon Valley server maker in March, accusing it of securities fraud by allegedly concealing its reliance on sales to China that violated U.S. export laws.
(Reporting by Preetika Parashuraman in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Ananya Palyekar, Editing by Sumana Nandy)
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