Nvidia Says Its Blackwell Chip Is Fine, Nothing to See Here

Chip giant Nvidia reported its third-quarter earnings earlier today, and all ears—and presumably some watch parties—were tuned in to try to determine what the company’s performance might mean for the near future of the artificial intelligence industry as a whole.

The fate of the company’s newest AI chip, Blackwell, was a major focus after production issues caused shipments to be delayed for several months earlier this year. On Sunday, The Information also reported that Blackwell chips were overheating when connected together in Nvidia’s customized server racks, prompting the company to make design changes.

But Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang told analysts and investors on its earnings call today that Blackwell production now “is in full steam.”

“We will deliver this quarter more Blackwells than we had previously estimated,” Huang said. Some of Nvidia’s most important customers, like Microsoft and OpenAI, have already received the new chips, and Blackwell sales could end up generating several billion dollars in revenue for the company next quarter, executives said.

Some industry analysts reported earlier that problems with the new chips had been fixed. Dylan Patel, chief analyst at the research firm SemiAnalysis, told Business insider that the Blackwell overheating issues “have been present for months and have largely been addressed.”

Patrick Moorhead, founder and chief analyst of Moor Insights & Strategy, told WIRED that his manufacturing contacts were unaware of any major overheating issues. But it’s not unusual, he said, for there to be tension between design, engineering, and production when bringing a new chip design to market.

“It’s a debate as old as semiconductors: Is it a design issue? Is it a production issue?” Moorhead said. “People are going to look for any type of smoke that can get in the way of the thesis of [Nvidia’s] dramatic growth.”

Nvidia generated $35.1 billion in revenue for the quarter, beating estimates of $33.2 billion. Its revenue rose 94 percent compared to last year. That’s a relatively small increase compared to a few of its recent quarters, when revenue rose as much as 265 percent on an annual basis—but Nvidia isn’t going out of business anytime soon. The results indicate that the AI market is continuing to boom as companies pour billions of dollars into buying advanced chips and other equipment, albeit at a slightly slower pace.

Original Author: Lauren Goode | Source: Wired