New chips take center stage at Nvidia’s artificial intelligence developer conference kickoff
Nvidia, a leading company in artificial intelligence semiconductors, began its yearly developer conference on Monday. Investors were eagerly awaiting new chip announcements from CEO Jensen Huang during his keynote address in the afternoon.
Nvidia’s new chip and software announcements at GTC 2024 will help determine whether Nvidia can maintain its leadership position as the dominant vendor of the tools needed in the AI boom of the past year. Nvidia dominates the market for artificial intelligence chips in data centers, taking about 80 percent of the market last year.
Its shares have risen 240% over the past 12 months, making Nvidia the third most valuable company on the US stock market behind Microsoft and Apple.
That stunning rally leaves Nvidia shares at risk of crashing back down to Earth if the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company fails to expand its artificial intelligence business as much as investors expect.
Its stock rose 1% ahead of Huang’s keynote, which was scheduled to take place at the Silicon Valley Hockey Arena at 1 p.m. PT (2000 GMT), the largest venue the company has secured for such an event.
Nvidia’s market share is expected to drop several percentage points in 2024 as new products from competitors such as Intel and Advanced Micro Devices enter the market.
Huang is expected to announce the company’s planned next-generation AI processors. The upcoming B100 chip is expected to feature significant improvements over its predecessor, the H100.
Although Nvidia is widely regarded as a chip designer, the company has also built significant battery software products. Huang is also expected to announce a number of new software-related products on Monday.
Nvidia said earlier this year that its software and services business had reached $1 billion in annual utilization by the end of the company’s last fiscal year.
The company will hold GTC in person for the first time since 2019. It expects around 16,000 attendees, roughly double the number of the last in-person event.
