(Bloomberg) — Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang said the company plans to upgrade its AI accelerators every year, announcing a Blackwell Ultra chip for 2025 and a next-generation platform in development called Rubin for 2026.
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The company – now best known for its artificial intelligence data center systems – also introduced new tools and software models on the eve of the Computex trade show in Taiwan. Nvidia sees the rise of generative AI as a new industrial revolution and expects to play an important role as the technology shifts to personal computers, the CEO said in a keynote speech at National Taiwan University.
Nvidia has been the main beneficiary of a massive wave of AI spending, making the company the most valuable chipmaker in the world. But the company is now looking to expand its customer base beyond the handful of cloud computing giants that generate much of its revenue. As part of the expansion, Huang expects a greater number of companies and government agencies will embrace AI – from shipbuilders to drug developers. He returned to the themes he laid out at the same venue a year ago, including the idea that without AI capabilities, humans will be left behind.
“We are seeing bill inflation,” Huang said on Sunday. As the amount of data to be processed grows exponentially, traditional computing methods cannot keep up, and only through Nvidia’s style of accelerated computing can we reduce costs, Huang said. He touted 98% cost savings and 97% less energy consumption with Nvidia’s technology, saying this was “CEO math, which is not accurate, but it is correct.”
The shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and other suppliers rose after the announcement. Shares of TSMC rose as much as 3.9%, while Wistron Corp. 4% won.
Huang said the upcoming Rubin AI platform will use HBM4, the next iteration of the essential high-bandwidth memory that has become a bottleneck for AI accelerator production, with leader SK Hynix Inc. was largely sold out until 2025. Furthermore, he did not offer detailed specifications for the upcoming products, which will follow Blackwell.
“I think highlighting Rubin and Rubin Ultra was extremely smart and indicative of the company’s commitment to a year-over-year renewal cycle,” said Dan Newman, CEO and principal analyst at Futurum Group. “What he has most clearly emphasized, in my opinion, is the speed of innovation and the company’s relentless pursuit of maximizing the boundaries of technology, including software, processes, packaging and partnerships to protect and expand its moat and market position expand.”
Nvidia started selling gaming cards for desktop PCs, and that background is coming into play as computer makers try to add more AI features to their machines.
Microsoft Corp. and its hardware partners are using Computex to show off new laptops with AI improvements under the Copilot+ brand. The majority of these devices coming to market are based on a new type of processor that allows them to run longer on a single battery charge, supplied by Nvidia rival Qualcomm Inc.
While these devices are good for basic AI functionality, adding an Nvidia graphics card will greatly improve performance and add new features to popular software like games, Nvidia said. PC manufacturers such as Asustek Computer Inc. offer such computers, the company said.
To help software makers bring more new capabilities to the PC, Nvidia is offering tools and pre-trained AI models. They will perform complex tasks, such as deciding whether to process data on the machine itself or send it to a data center over the Internet.
In addition, Nvidia is releasing a new design for server computers built on its chips. The MGX program is used by companies such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and Dell Technologies Inc. to enable them to get to market faster with products used by companies and government agencies. Even rivals Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Intel Corp. take advantage of the design with servers that place their processors next to Nvidia chips.
AMD CEO Lisa Su took the stage at Computex the day after Huang’s comments and outlined her company’s progress in AI chips. AMD is accelerating the introduction of its AI processors as it looks to close the gap with Nvidia in the fast-growing field.
Nvidia’s previously announced products such as Spectrum It will also offer free access to NIM products. The microservices are a set of intermediate software and models that help companies deploy AI services faster, without having to worry about the underlying technology. Companies that deploy them must then pay Nvidia a usage fee.
Huang also promoted the use of digital twins in a virtual world that Nvidia calls the Ominverse. To show the possible scale, he showed off a digital twin of planet Earth, called Earth 2, and how it could help perform more advanced weather pattern modeling and other complex tasks. He noted that Taiwan-based contract manufacturers such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., also known as Foxconn, are using the tools to plan and run their factories more efficiently.
–With help from Jane Lanhee Lee.
(Updates with analyst commentary from sixth paragraph)
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