Advertisement
Semiconductors
TechTech Trends

Nvidia to take on Intel’s most profitable market with its first server microprocessors

  • The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre and the Los Alamos National Laboratory will be the first to use the chips in their computers, Nvidia said
  • Data centre revenue contributes about 40 per cent of the company’s sales, up from less than 7 per cent just five years ago

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers a speech about AI and gaming during the Computex Taipei exhibition in this 2017 file photo. Photo: AP
Bloomberg

Nvidia unveiled its first server microprocessors on Monday, extending a push into Intel’s most lucrative market with a chip aimed at handling the most complicated computing work.

The graphics chip maker has designed a central processing unit (CPU), based on technology from Arm, a company it is trying to acquire from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre and US Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory will be the first to use the chips in their computers, Nvidia said Monday at an online event.

Nvidia has focused mainly on graphics processing units, or GPUs, which are used to power video games and intensive computing tasks in data centers. CPUs, by contrast, are a type of chip that is more of a generalist and can do basic tasks like running operating systems. Expanding into this product category opens up more revenue opportunities for Nvidia.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has made Nvidia the most valuable US chip maker by delivering on his promise to give graphics chips a major role in the explosion in cloud computing. Data centre revenue contributes about 40 per cent of the company’s sales, up from less than 7 per cent just five years ago. Intel still has more than 90 per cent of the market in server processors, which can sell for more than US$10,000 each.

The CPU, named Grace after the late pioneering computer scientist Grace Hopper, is designed to work closely with Nvidia graphics chips to better handle new computing problems that will come with a trillion parameters. Systems working with the new chip will be 10 times faster than those currently using a combination of Nvidia graphics chips and Intel CPUs. The new product will be available at the beginning of 2023, Nvidia said. Advanced Micro Devices is the only other maker of these X86 CPUs and graphics chips.

“The takeaway is that Nvidia is serious about CPUs and will not be constrained by X86 owned by Intel and AMD,” Hans Mosesmann, an analyst at Rosenblatt Securities, said in a research note. “The level of platform innovation is mind boggling and something that silicon competitors will be tasked to match for many, many years to come.”

Revenue in the period ending in April is expected to be higher than US$5.3 billion, which Nvidia projected on February 24, the company said Monday in a separate statement.

Advertisement