On September 26th local time, the stock of Super Micro Computer in the United States was heavily sold off, and as of the close of the day, the stock price of Super Micro Computer plummeted by more than 12%. Nvidia's stock price also gave up its nearly 2% increase from earlier in the day.
It is reported that the US Department of Justice will launch an investigation into the financial fraud of Supermicro Computer. In August of this year, Hindenburg Research released a short selling report accusing Supermicro of financial fraud and causing the company's financial report to be postponed.
At present, the stock price of Supermicro Computer is $400, which is two-thirds lower than the high of nearly $1200 set in March this year.
Although Supermicro Computer is a company with a market value of only tens of billions of dollars, it became the biggest beneficiary of the peak of the artificial intelligence boom at the beginning of this year, with its stock price skyrocketing by more than ten times, even surpassing Nvidia, and is also known as the "AI demon stock" in the market.
AMD has close relationships with chip giants such as Nvidia, AMD, and Intel, and is an important partner for these manufacturers. The computers produced by the company are used by some cloud service providers for AI servers.
According to a short selling report released by Hindenburg Research, there are a series of issues with Supermicro computers, including "accounting practices, undisclosed evidence of related party transactions, violations of export bans, and customer churn. But the supercomputer stated that these accusations are inaccurate.
Despite the delay in the release of the latest financial report, the supercomputer has already shown signs of declining profits in the previous quarter's financial report. The company's Q4 2024 financial report as of June 30 showed a gross profit margin falling to 11.2%, the lowest in history.
Supermicro Computer was founded by Chinese entrepreneur Charles Liang, and the company has attracted attention from the capital market due to its "deep binding" relationship with Nvidia. Previously, some analysts set the target stock price of Supermicro Computer at $1500.
The bond between AMD and Nvidia is very deep, and Nvidia relies on them to make a living. If AMD's finances have problems, although it will not directly affect Nvidia, it will at least reflect changes in market trends, "an industry insider analyzed to First Financial reporters.
The above-mentioned individuals further stated that for every generation of chips released by Nvidia, AMD is responsible for stocking up. Once market demand decreases, it will first be transmitted to AMD, such as inventory backlog, which may also trigger financial crises.
Morgan Stanley analysts previously wrote in a report that "Supermicro computers are facing sustainability issues with artificial intelligence demand and profitability issues with artificial intelligence servers
However, some analysts believe that the risk of financial collapse for Supermicro computers may be exaggerated. According to a research report by Loop Capital, the importance of AMD for generative AI servers has been underestimated. The agency believes that with Nvidia's latest generation AI chip Blackwell, AMD's gross profit margin and operating profit margin are expected to recover to over 14% and 10%, respectively.
Loop Capital points out that from the perspective of cooperation between AMD and customers, AMD remains the primary supplier of choice for Nvidia original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) throughout the entire Blackwell cycle until 2026.
This indicates that although there are now more providers of generative AI servers involved, they are not providing the same high profit services as AMD computers, such as rack integration and debugging, "the agency wrote.