Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, at the company's annual developer conference, introduced the latest chip with processing speeds up to 30 times faster. He also detailed a new software toolkit that makes it easier for developers to sell AI models.
Nvidia's new flagship chip, called the B200, consists of two silicon cells the same size as the company's previous product, linked together into a single component. The B200 "Blackwell" chip is 30 times faster in tasks such as providing chatbot responses. However, its performance in handling massive amounts of data needed to train those chatbots remains unclear.
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Tom Plumb, managing director and portfolio manager at Plumb Funds, commented that the appearance of the Blackwell chip was unsurprising. “It reinforces that this company is still leading in processors. It’s not that the market isn’t big enough for AMD or others to enter. But Nvidia is leading.”
Nvidia said that major customers including Amazon.com, Alphabet, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Oracle expect to use the new chip in their cloud computing services as well as for their own AI services.
Nvidia is also shifting from selling individual chips to selling entire systems. The latest version of the system contains 72 AI chips and 36 central processing units.
Many analysts predict Nvidia's market share will decline by several percentage points in 2024 as new products from competitors enter the market and Nvidia's largest customers manufacture their own chips.
Although Nvidia is widely known for its hardware products, the company has also produced a significant amount of software. These new software tools, known as microservices, improve system efficiency across a variety of uses, making it easier for businesses to integrate AI models into their workflows, much like a good computer operating system can help applications run smoothly.
Beyond AI software, Nvidia is also delving deeper into software that simulates the physical world using 3D models. For automotive, jet, and product design work, Huang has also announced collaborations with design software companies.
Nvidia also introduced a new line of chips designed for automobiles with the new capability to run chatbots inside vehicles. The company has strengthened its already extensive relationships with Chinese automakers, stating that electric vehicle manufacturer BYD and Xpeng will both use the new chips.
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