March 20 (Reuters) - Super Micro Computer said on Friday that Yih-Shyan Liaw has resigned from its board, effective immediately, after the co-founder was arrested by the U.S. Justice Department for helping smuggle billions of dollars of AI chips to China.
Shares of the artificial intelligence server maker rose 2% in trading after the bell, after closing the session down over 33%.
Liaw's resignation was not the result of a disagreement with the company, Super Micro said in a filing with the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission.
The Department of Justice on Thursday charged Liaw, sales manager Ruei-Tsang Chang, and contractor Ting-Wei Sun with running a scheme to route U.S.-made servers through Taiwan to Southeast Asia.
The DOJ said Liaw, a U.S. citizen, and Sun, a citizen of Taiwan, were arrested on Thursday, while Chang, a Taiwanese citizen, remains a fugitive.
Liaw co-founded Super Micro in 1993, and joined its board of directors in 2023. Chang was a sales manager in the Taiwan office of Super Micro.
Super Micro had said it placed Liaw and Chang on leave and terminated its ties with Sun, who was a contractor, after being made aware of the charges.
U.S. prosecutors did not name Super Micro — a major AI server builder using Nvidia's chips — in the complaint. Super Micro confirmed it was not named as a defendant in the case, and said it had cooperated with investigators.
Analysts at Melius Research warned that Super Micro's revenue faces "enormous" risk as customers reconsider their supplier relationships, adding that they see Dell as the primary beneficiary due to its scale and stronger ties with Nvidia.
Super Micro on Friday also announced the appointment of DeAnna Luna as acting chief compliance officer, effective immediately. She joined the company as vice president of global trade & sanctions compliance in 2024.
(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Alan Barona)
