Recently, according to media reports, Nvidia's upcoming AI chips will be delayed by three months or more due to design flaws, which could affect tens of billions of dollars worth of chips ordered by customers such as Meta, Google, and Microsoft. According to a Microsoft employee and another person familiar with the matter, the most advanced artificial intelligence chip in its new Blackwell series of chips will be delayed.
Nvidia fell sharply again after a sharp rise
Recently, due to factors such as the poor performance of technology giants, the sharp increase in competitors' revenues, and the changing pattern of AI chips, coupled with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's frequent reduction of holdings, Wall Street's concerns about Nvidia's long-term prospects, Nvidia's stock price volatility has increased.
United States has begun an investigation into Nvidia: On the one hand, according to five people directly familiar with the matter, Justice Department lawyers are investigating semiconductor company Nvidia's acquisition of artificial intelligence startups on antitrust grounds. The two companies announced the deal at the end of April, but did not disclose the price. On the other hand, United States progressive groups and Democratic Senator Wolondon urged the Justice Department to investigate Nvidia, which he believes is dominant in the market for AI chips, opposing Nvidia's practice of bundling software and hardware together.
News from the industry pointed out that Nvidia's NV card shipment was delayed. The B100 and B200 models will be cancelled, and the previous order will be delivered at 20% of the order volume, and the B200A will be upgraded to the B200A, and deliveries are expected to begin in the middle of next year.
According to media reports, Elliott Management, a top hedge fund on Wall Street, manages about 70 billion US dollars (about 500 billion yuan) in assets Management) told investors that big tech giants, especially Nvidia, are in a bubble and that the artificial intelligence technology that drives their stock price violently is being overhyped. Many of Nvidia's biggest customers are also developing their own chips, and Elliott doubts that big tech companies will continue to buy Nvidia's GPUs in large quantities, the agency said.
On Friday, Nvidia fell as much as 7% intraday to close at $107.27 per share.
|Blackwell may be delayed until 2025
According to the latest due diligence on the supply chain by overseas research institutions, the commercialization of Nvidia's Blackwell platform may be delayed. Blackwell's bulk shipments may be delayed until late Q1 or early Q2 2025, a few months later than previously expected for September-October 2024.
This may affect the upcoming product portfolio – B100/200HGX, GB200 NVL36/72, which may even affect all relevant devices. However, NVIDIA and its key partners are still improving Blackwell products, including performance and reliability, from GPU design, manufacturing, component sourcing and subsystem testing to complex rack system integration.
In addition, the Nvidia B100, which was originally planned for mass production in the fourth quarter of this year, may be canceled and instead focus on the production of the GB200. However, judging from the feedback from some institutions, the Nvidia B series is only delayed for 3-4 months, the H200 is filled first, and the GB200 shipment is not affected, and there is a solution.
People close to TSMC said that the main reason for the delay of the plan may be that one of the criteria for circuit stability is to be changed, and a new alternative has been proposed to affect the backlog for no more than four months.
Nvidia's customers are more anxious
Blackwell can be described as the "white moonlight" in the minds of technology companies, carrying the high hopes of giants. If the upcoming AI chips such as the B100, B200 and GB200 are delayed by three months or more, Nvidia's customers will really be "worried".
These customers include Microsoft, Meta and OpenAI, who have great expectations for Nvidia's AI chips and plan to use the "supercomputer" developed by NVIDIA to produce future generations of large language models, Meta AI assistants and other automation features, etc.
the Information cites people familiar with the matter as saying that Meta has placed orders worth at least $10 billion, while Microsoft has increased its order size by 20% in recent weeks. Microsoft plans to have 55,000-65,000 GB200 chips ready for OpenAI by the first quarter of 2025.
Jingtai Discussion| What are the effects of delays?
This delayed release will not only have an impact on NVIDIA itself, but also on its customers and the entire industry ecosystem.
Product delays: State-of-the-art AI chips may be delayed by three months or more due to delays due to design flaws.
This delay also affects Nvidia, which uses these chips Production and delivery of NVLink server racks. This means that companies that rely on the latest technology to build high-performance computing systems must wait for new chip samples to be able to finalize their server designs.
Production schedule adjustments: The report mentions that Nvidia wants to carry out a so-called "redesign" by replacing some reticles (masks) to improve the stability of the Blackwell chip. This suggests that additional steps or adjustments may be required in the production process, further delaying the release of the chip.
Market implications: The delay in the launch could affect Nvidia's position in the highly competitive AI chip market. Competitors such as AMD, Intel, and other startups may use this opportunity to strengthen their market share.
For investors, this could lead to short-term volatility in Nvidia stock, especially as the market remains highly focused on the AI space.
Supply chain implications: If the production of these chips needs to wait until the first quarter of 2025, then other partners in the supply chain, such as foundries such as TSMC, may also need to adjust their production schedules.
