Super Micro CEO Eyes $25 Billion in Sales — But Needs More Chips

Brody Ford, Bloomberg News

The Super Micro Computer Inc. headquarters in San Jose, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. China's exploitation of products made by Supermicro, as the U.S. company is known, has been under federal scrutiny for much of the past decade, according to 14 former law enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the matter. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Super Micro Computer Inc. is riding a historic rally, but there’s still one thing holding it back from even greater gains: the availability of semiconductors.

“There is a chip shortage — once we have more supply from the chip companies, from Nvidia, we can ship more to customers,” Chief Executive Officer Charles Liang said Friday in an interview on Bloomberg Television, referring to Nvidia Corp., the leading maker of accelerators to handle artificial intelligence work. Current production capacity can support sales of as much as $25 billion, but the San Jose, California-based company just needs more chips, Liang added.

The maker of data center servers has seen its shares more than triple since Jan. 1 as investors bet on increasing need for the equipment that powers AI applications and training. Wall Street expects Super Micro’s revenue to more than double to $14.5 billion in the year ending in June.

Read More: Super Micro’s Vertical Stock Move Suggests a ‘Casino Mentality’

“The market demand is so strong,” Liang said. His wealth has quadrupled this year to $7.8 billion, making him the biggest percentage gainer on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the world’s 500 richest people.

--With assistance from Ryan Vlastelica, Ed Ludlow, Caroline Hyde and Ian King.