US prosecutors suspect Bangkok-based OBON Corp.—a company woven into Thailand's official AI ambitions—of serving as the central middleman in a scheme that moved roughly $2.5 billion worth of Supermicro servers loaded with advanced Nvidia chips into China, Bloomberg reports. Alibaba is among the alleged end customers.
Indictment Details
OBON is the unnamed "Company-1" referenced in a March federal indictment that charged Supermicro co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw and two associates with violating US export control law. All three have pleaded not guilty. OBON itself has not been charged, nor has Alibaba.
Alibaba told Reuters it has no business relationship with Supermicro, OBON, or any brokers named in the indictment, and flatly denied that banned Nvidia chips have ever touched its data centers. OBON's only listed phone number has been disconnected. A Bloomberg reporter who visited the company's Bangkok address was turned away at the door.
Thailand's Sovereign AI Push
Thailand's sovereign AI push now sits squarely in a federal smuggling investigation. OBON's footprint in Thailand's tech ecosystem makes the case politically awkward. The company created Siam AI, Thailand's sovereign cloud initiative, which became the first Thai company to receive an official Nvidia Cloud Partner designation. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attended a Siam AI event in Bangkok in December 2024. Ratanaphon Wongnapachant—nephew of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra—ran both OBON and Siam AI through at least mid-2024. He told Bloomberg he stepped away from OBON when he launched Siam AI, and that Siam AI has no involvement in the matter.
Smuggling Operation
According to the indictment, the operation used falsified shipping documents, swapped serial numbers, and dummy servers staged in warehouses to fool Supermicro's compliance team—by which point the real hardware had already left for China. The scheme ran from 2024 into 2025, generating over $500 million in a single five-week stretch last April and May.
Why the $2.5 billion figure matters: Chinese grey-market prices for top Nvidia hardware can hit double the US sticker price.
Impact on Supermicro
Supermicro's shares fell roughly 33% following the March indictment. CEO Charles Liang said on the company's latest earnings call that misconduct was limited to the individuals named by the Justice Department. An internal investigation remains open.
For Nvidia, the case compounds ongoing questions about how effectively its tiered export framework holds when official partner programmes are part of the diversion route. The company said it would continue cooperating with federal authorities on enforcement.
Liaw's case is scheduled for a status conference this summer.
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