(Bloomberg) — A key company behind Thailand’s national AI effort is suspected of helping smuggle billions of dollars worth of Super Micro Computer Inc. servers containing advanced Nvidia Corp. chips. for China, with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. being one of the multiple end customers, according to people familiar with the matter.
U.S. prosecutors this year laid bare a scheme in which Super Micro’s co-founder allegedly worked with an unnamed Southeast Asian company and a “rotating cast” of third-party brokers to siphon off AI semiconductors in violation of U.S. trade rules. The Southeast Asian company that prosecutors did not name, identified only as Company-1, is Bangkok-based OBON Corp., the sources said.
Some of the $2.5 billion worth of servers sold to OBON reportedly went to Chinese AI leader Alibaba, according to the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive legal and geopolitical issue.
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Prosecutors laid out allegations detailing the overall operation in a March indictment that sent Super Micro’s shares into free fall — by far the biggest crackdown on chip smuggling since Washington restricted Nvidia’s sales to China in 2022.
The indictment does not name OBON or Alibaba, and U.S. authorities have not publicly accused them of wrongdoing. Spokespeople for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is prosecuting the case, and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which played a central role in the investigation, declined to comment.
“Alibaba has no business relationship with Super Micro, OBON or any third-party brokers that may have been mentioned in the indictment in question,” said a spokesperson for the Chinese company. “We have no involvement in the alleged smuggling activities. We do not currently use, and have never used, any prohibited Nvidia chips in our data centers.”
A little-known company outside of tech circles, OBON is responsible for creating Siam AI, Thailand’s leading cloud champion, according to a May 2024 press release. At the time, OBON said it would deploy Nvidia servers in a small data center in Bangkok, designed to “enable OBON to launch Siam AI Cloud and revolutionize the country’s AI roadmap.” Siam AI had been incorporated as a separate company four months earlier.
Siam AI earned Thailand’s first official Cloud Partner designation and hosted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at a landmark event focused on so-called sovereign AI. “The most important part of artificial intelligence is data. And Thailand’s data belongs to the Thai people,” Huang said during an informal conversation in December 2024 with Ratanaphon Wongnapachant, CEO of Siam AI.
Ratanaphon, nephew of Thai billionaire and former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was also CEO of OBON until at least May 2024, according to the company’s statement, which cited the Siam AI website as a place to find more information about OBON. Although the paths of the two companies have been intertwined and overlapped, it is unclear whether OBON and Siam AI maintain any business relationship.
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Ratanaphon said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that he left OBON when he launched Siam AI and therefore could not comment on US suspicions that OBON had smuggled French fries into China. “I’m only going to answer about Siam AI, which is that the company is not involved in this,” he said.
“Siam AI imports GPUs for our own use,” Ratanaphon added, referring to graphics processing units like those made by Nvidia. A person familiar with the company’s operations, who requested anonymity to discuss private matters, said OBON is one of several vendors from which Siam AI has secured AI servers in Thailand. Outside of the data center that OBON highlighted when launching Siam AI in May 2024, Siam AI has announced at least two other computing facilities deals, including one under which it plans to jointly acquire Nvidia chips with a Dubai partner.
Bloomberg was unable to reach OBON for comment. The only contact number on the OBON website has been disconnected, and company representatives did not respond to an email sent to an address listed on the page. A Bloomberg reporter who visited the company’s official address in Bangkok was denied entry by an employee at the office building, who confirmed that OBON employees work there but declined to provide a phone number or other contact details. On a wall directory in the lobby, Siam AI is listed as one of the occupants of the seven-story office building, while OBON is not.
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OBON’s alleged involvement in the smuggling deal could deal a blow to Thailand’s budding ambitions in AI and reignite calls in Washington for restrictions on the sale of potato chips to the region. The U.S. three times planned or considered export controls on semiconductor shipments to Thailand — including a draft rule designed specifically to address smuggling concerns — but never moved forward.
A Thai government spokesman declined to comment.
OBOB’s alleged role also raises more questions about the effectiveness of Nvidia’s due diligence on high-volume sales of its hardware. Outside of Thailand, two official Singapore-based Nvidia partners have come under government scrutiny for alleged semiconductor trade violations, while the parent company of a third — located in China — revealed to Beijing that it had acquired Super Micro AI servers containing banned Nvidia chips.
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“Our ecosystem partners must be committed to rigorous compliance at all levels,” an Nvidia spokesperson said in an email response to questions. “Our due diligence efforts have led to prosecutions of potential smugglers, and we will continue to work with the government to enforce the rules as we build the world’s AI infrastructure,” the spokesperson said, referring to a foiled smuggling scheme via Thailand that was revealed in March — the fifth case of U.S. government chip diversion since August.
Nvidia semiconductors are the most sought-after components in the AI era. Companies like OpenAI use them by the thousands in huge data centers to train and run models like ChatGPT, while governments around the world see them as necessary for technological sovereignty.
Since 2022, Washington has effectively blocked these processors from entering China due to concerns that advanced AI could give Beijing a military advantage. The rules work like a licensing requirement: Companies must seek permission from the U.S. government to ship virtually any Nvidia AI chip to the Asian country, a mandate that remains even after President Donald Trump recently announced he would allow some sales.
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This left Chinese companies with effectively two options for accessing cutting-edge AI hardware. They can rent chips that are physically located in overseas facilities — which is generally permitted under US law, and which companies like Alibaba are known to do — or they can acquire chips that have been smuggled into China.
Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw has pleaded not guilty to diversion charges, as has Ting-Wei “Willy” Sun, an outside contractor described by U.S. authorities as a “fixer” who allegedly helped with the diversion. The third defendant — Ruei-Tsang “Steven” Chang, who served as general manager at Super Micro’s Taiwan office — also pleaded not guilty.
Super Micro, which is not named in the indictment, has launched an internal investigation, while Liaw has left the board and is no longer with the company in any capacity. CEO Charles Liang said this week on the company’s quarterly earnings call that he is “personally shocked and saddened by these alleged actions” and that “no one at the company, other than those named in the DOJ indictment, was involved. Therefore, we have very good confidence in our integrity.”
The company “has a robust compliance program and is committed to full adherence to all applicable U.S. export and re-export control laws and regulations,” a Super Micro spokesperson said in an emailed response to questions. “The company took decisive action in response to the elaborate schemes orchestrated by the individuals alleged in the U.S. Attorney’s Office indictment.”
The spokesperson added that Super Micro “has not been accused of any wrongdoing and will continue to take steps to ensure its technology is treated with the highest level of ethical and legal scrutiny.”
Super Micro declined to comment on its relationship with OBON, which — according to Company-1’s descriptions in the indictment — was, at one point, Super Micro’s 11th most profitable customer.
A rapid increase in Company-1’s sales, which accounted for nearly $100 million in revenue in Super Micro’s quarter ending in June 2024, led the server manufacturer to audit and temporarily suspend shipments in October of that year, according to the indictment. This corresponds to a sharp drop in imports of OBON goods under the commercial code for AI servers, according to import records compiled by the Big Trade Data platform.
OBON imports began to recover again in 2025, and rose sharply in April and May — just before the U.S. required permits for AI chip sales in Thailand, part of a global export control framework that Trump’s team abandoned before it took effect. Super Micro’s compliance team briefly paused shipments to Company-1 in April of that year, but quickly lifted the hold, according to the indictment.
A few months later, after OBON’s AI server imports slowed again, Super Micro’s compliance team ordered another review — which one of the defendants, Sun, allegedly prepared for by preparing dummy servers in warehouses. Company-1 — which people familiar said was OBON — also paid for off-site entertainment for one of Super Micro’s auditors during that August 2025 visit, according to the indictment.
A few days later, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, responsible for semiconductor export controls, requested a suspension of all shipments to Company-1. That order remains in effect until the arraignment date in March.
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