The Thai company Obon is suspected of smuggling servers from the American company Super Micro Computer into China worth billions of dollars: the traffic is also significant for U.S. national security, since the servers in question contain advanced Nvidia microchips and appear to have been obtained by Alibaba.
THE ARREST OF THE CO-FOUNDER OF SUPER MICRO
In March, Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan Liaw was arrested on charges of “illegally transferring cutting-edge U.S. artificial intelligence technologies to China,” according to the statement released by the U.S. Department of Justice.
THE CONTEXT, IN A FEW WORDS
Nvidia’s processors are the most sophisticated on the market and are in high demand for training and operating artificial intelligence systems; however, the Chinese cannot access the most advanced models due to trade restrictions imposed by the U.S. government aimed at curbing the technological—and consequently military—development of the rival nation.
Moreover, in February, the U.S. Department of Defense had placed Alibaba—one of China’s largest tech giants, very active in cloud computing and artificial intelligence—on a list of entities considered close to the Chinese armed forces.
According to Bloomberg’s reports, Alibaba allegedly received Super Micro servers smuggled by Obon worth 2.5 billion; the company has denied having business relations with Super Micro and Obon.
WHAT OBON DOES: THE CONNECTIONS WITH SIAM AI AND NVIDIA
Very little is known about Obon: however, it is known that it was involved in the launch of Siam Ai, the company that is supposed to become Thailand’s “national champion” in cloud computing, starting from a small data center in Bangkok equipped with Nvidia devices.
Today Siam Ai is a standalone company, although its relationship with Obon is unclear. At least until May 2024, Obon’s CEO was Ratanaphon Wongnapachant, nephew of the entrepreneur and former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Siam Ai was the first company in Thailand to receive the official Nvidia designation as a “Cloud Partner.” Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, also attended a company event in Bangkok in December 2024.
THE INTEREST OF AMERICAN BIG TECH IN THAILAND
In recent years, several American tech companies have focused on Thailand: Google and Microsoft, for example, have invested in opening data centers to enhance the offering of cloud computing services in the country and in the Southeast Asia region.
Besides being a very important region for technological manufacturing, Southeast Asia—with its approximately 675 million inhabitants—is considered an area with high potential demand for digital services: this is why the two Big Tech—but also Amazon, with a $9 billion project—are spending billions on building data centers and similar facilities in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore in particular.
