Super Micro Shares Rise 4% on Preliminary Plan for 10,000 Inference Chips
Key Facts
Super Micro shares rose 4% to $31.73 during the November 3 session after the company announced a strategic collaboration with SambaNova ahead of its fiscal 2027 first-quarter results review. SambaNova said the two companies initially plan to use 10,000 SN50 RDU chips in inference systems combining them with NVIDIA graphics processing units. The gain followed a 27% decline in the month ended November 3; the stock had closed at $30.44 in the previous session. Super Micro issued preliminary revenue and gross margin estimates above its previous quarterly guidance. That puts demand for AI platforms and the profitability of their sales at the center of what investors will be watching in the results review.
Super Micro estimated first-quarter revenue for fiscal 2027, ended September 30, 2026, at $18.5 billion to $19.5 billion, compared with previous guidance of $14.5 billion to $15.5 billion. The company attributed the increase mainly to higher demand for AI platforms. It also estimated gross margin at 12.0% to 12.5%, versus a previous range of 10.4% to 10.8%. It linked the margin improvement mainly to customer and product mix. The company said its estimates are preliminary and unaudited, and that actual results may differ materially; the reported figures therefore remain estimates pending the quarterly results review.
The announced partnership is based on distributing inference tasks between two types of processors. SambaNova said NVIDIA GPUs handle reading the prompt, while SN50 chips are designed to write the response quickly. The companies intend to begin working with neocloud and sovereign cloud providers, then expand to businesses running AI applications in their own data centers. The initial plan for 10,000 RDU chips gives the collaboration a stated scale from the outset, but remains preliminary planning under the partnership. The proposed systems combine GPUs and RDU chips in a single inference pipeline.
The gains extended to other companies in the sector during the same session. HPE shares rose 6% to $54.08, while Dell shares gained 5% to $410.58. A selloff on October 30 had included U.S. server companies, with Dell, HPE and Super Micro shares falling between 6% and 11%, according to Reuters. In morning trading on November 3, the S&P 500 added about 0.3% and the Dow Jones fell 0.6%, while the Nasdaq rose 0.7%, according to AP.
Super Micro's estimates come amid earlier signs of expanding demand for AI servers among companies in the sector. The company said it received more than $60 billion in new orders during fiscal 2026 and entered fiscal 2027 with a record order book. In the second quarter of its fiscal 2027, Dell recorded a record $60.9 billion in AI server orders and record revenue of $16.4 billion from them, ending the quarter with a record order book of $95 billion. Dell's inventory also reached about $21.3 billion on July 31, 2026, compared with $7.2 billion a year earlier. Dan Niles said the increase in inventory indicates chip supplies are closer to demand than companies believe.
The company said it will review its first-quarter results on November 3, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time, or 2:00 p.m. Pacific time. The review will follow publication of the preliminary revenue and gross margin estimates, with the company cautioning that actual results may differ materially. The chief executive said on an August call that the company “will very carefully balance revenue and profitability.” That comment puts profitability alongside revenue growth in the forthcoming discussion of performance. The review will give the company an opportunity to discuss the preliminary figures and details of demand for its platforms.