The groundbreaking, most powerful, super chip
That's also the label given to a new product from Nvidia (NVDA) that the company unveiled during its annual conference. The company unveiled the GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip, which consists of multiple chips and promises up to a 30x performance boost. The chip is part of the innovative Blackwell GPU architecture, which offers greater efficiency and speed in data processing while using less power compared to its predecessor, the H100, which could lead to research breakthroughs in new drug design, engineering or quantum computing. The chip is due to be launched later this year, with prices expected to be in the range of $30k to $40k. The conference also brought news on software tools or AI models for creating humanoid robots. These innovations confirm Nvidia's leadership in the field of computing, as evidenced by the statements of some analysts, for example, from J. P. Morgan, KeyBanc or Wells Fargo, about Nvidia's strong retention of its position and how it is a few steps ahead of the competition.
Interest has been confirmed by major players in the market
According to the company's CEO Jensen Huang's statement in a press release published directly on the company's website, Nvidia has been pursuing innovations in deep learning and AI for several decades, while promising artificial intelligence in every industry in collaboration with leading companies such as Dell, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, and others. As part of cementing the collaboration, both Amazon and Meta have announced plans to use Blackwell chips. Amazon's subsidiary, Amazon Web Services (AWS) will use Blackwell's technology in the Ceiba project, which aims to create the world's fastest supercomputer. Meta expects to ship the new chips as early as the end of the year for use in its Large Language Model Meta AI (LLaMA). Currently, Meta uses the aforementioned H100 chips, also made by Nvidia, to train LLaMA.
Instant response
The introduction of the chips brought with it a response not only in the US market, but also at the other end of the world. US chipmaking competitor AMD saw its share price drop by more than 6 percent in response to the announcement.* Asian technology and AI competitors were also in the red. Whether it is chipmakers SK Hynix Inc. or Taiwan's TSMC, Nvidia supplier Advantest Corp. as well as SoftBank Group Corp, which is associated with AI under Arm Holdings. Meanwhile, the development of these companies followed that of Nvidia itself, whose stock market value dropped by 2 percent after the announcement, despite the fact that the presentation itself was basically as expected.*
The company's tremendous performance
Despite the slight decline in share value, I won't be lying if I say that Nvidia has been outperforming expectations since the beginning of this year, as it has surged to a current price of over $890 per share (as of March 20, 2024), up 80 percent from the $490 per share of early January 2024.* Over the past 5 years, the company has gone through highs, for example, during the autumn of 2021, after which it admittedly came a gradual fall to less than $100 per share. Since the fall of 2022, however, prices have been rising with a brief volatile period in the 2nd half of last year. The fact that the company is thriving is confirmed by its market capitalization of more than USD 2.2 trillion, putting it ahead of Alphabet, Amazon and Meta, according to Companiemarketcap.com.
Nvidia's stock development over the last 5 years. (Source: tradingeconomics.com) *
More collaborations in sight
Nvidia also announced a collaboration with Chinese electric car makers during last week's Monday conference. BYD, Xpeng, as well as Li Auto and others will use Drive Thor technology in their cars. In addition, a collaboration with Cerence was announced to customize language modules in cars and with Soundhound to develop a voice command system. [1]
Olivia Lacenova, principal analyst at Wonderinterest Trading Ltd.
* Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
[1] Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and current expectations, which may be inaccurate, or the current economic environment, which may change. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance. They involve risks and other uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by any forward-looking statements.
