AI boom mints another billionaire, Super Micro founder Charles Liang
Super Micro Computers’ stock surge has pushed its founder and CEO, Charles Liang, into the billionaire ranks.
Liang, a 66-year-old Taiwan native, decided 30 years ago that Super Micro would begin designing motherboards, according to the company’s website.
Now a Silicon Valley resident, Liang’s bet on motherboards, complex circuit boards that have become increasingly important as the backbone of artificial intelligence, have paid off.
On Friday, shares of Super Micro jumped 25% to a record high after the company projected quarterly results well above its current estimates, which was attributed to strong demand for AI servers.
Liang’s share of the company meant that upon its lucrative day on Friday added more than $850 million to the chief executive’s fortune, according to Bloomberg.
Liang’s 12% stake and additional options are now worth a collective $3.3 billion, per Bloomberg’s calculations.
Super Micro’s provisional revenue for the latest quarter came in at more than $3.6 billion — far exceeding analysts’ $2.8 billion estimates and pushing shares up by more than a third.
The company is also riding a rising need for its liquid cooling solutions from data centers processing more generative AI applications.
Liang’s net worth, however, has been on the up and up since May 2023. At the time, Liang was already giving “AI momentum” credit for having “benefited Super Micro greatly.”
Super Micro’s stock has more than tripled since then. Since the start of the month, the company’s share price has advanced more than 71% alone, to $489.20 at the time of writing.
The San Jose, Calif.-based company is set to add more than $4 billion to its market capitalization of $17.3 billion, as of last close.
Super Micro’s 70%-plus sequential growth handily outpaces the GenAI market growth, which is estimated to have been only about 41% for the December quarter from the prior three-month period, Northland Securities analyst Nehal Chokshi said.
“We speculate that the company’s upside is importantly driven by earlier-than-expected hyperscale engagements, that are keen on deploying quickly liquid cooled racks that uniquely falls into Super Micro’s area of expertise,” Rosenblatt Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann wrote in a note.
The upbeat estimates from Super Micro, which counts NASA, IBM and chip giant Nvidia as customers, follow a bullish note from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. on AI on Thursday, which fueled a global rally in chip stocks.
Representatives for Liang at Super Micro did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Liang founded Super Micro in 1993 with his wife, Sara Liu, after moving to the US from Taiwan to study electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Liu, who served as treasurer at the time of Super Micro’s inception, remains a senior vice president and director at the firm, according to Bloomberg.
With Post wires.
