- Written by Mariko Aoi
- Business reporter
Image source, Getty Images
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced the new AI chip at an event in San Jose, California
Nvidia has unveiled its latest artificial intelligence (AI) chips that are 30 times faster at some tasks than its predecessor.
The company has an 80% market share and hopes to strengthen its dominance.
In addition to the Blackwell B200 chip, its CEO Jensen Huang detailed a new set of software tools at the annual developer conference.
Nvidia is the third most valuable company in the United States, behind only Microsoft and Apple.
As Mr. Huang began the conference, he joked: “I hope you realize this is not a concert.”
But Bob O'Donnell, from Technalogy Research, who was at the event, told the BBC that “the buzz was in the air”.
“I haven't seen anything like this in the tech industry in a long time,” he said.
“In fact, some people were making analogies to the early days of the types of presentations that Steve Jobs gave.”
Nvidia said major customers, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, are expected to use the company's new flagship chip in cloud computing services and for their own AI offerings.
She also said that new software tools, called microservices, improve system efficiency to make it easier for the company to integrate the AI model into its work.
Other announcements include a new line of chips for cars that can run in-car chatbots. The company said that Chinese electric car makers BYD and Xpeng will use its new chips.
Mr. Huang also demonstrated a new series of chips to create human-like robots, and invited several robots to join him on stage.
Founded in 1993, Nvidia was originally known for manufacturing the type of computer chips that processed graphics, especially for PC games.
Long before the AI revolution, it began adding features to its chips that it says aid in machine learning, investments that have helped it gain market share.
It is now seen as a key company to watch to see how quickly AI-powered technology spreads throughout the business world.
But competition is fierce from competitors like AMD and Intel.
The market is growing so fast that “even if Nvidia loses some stock, it can still grow its overall business because there's a lot of opportunity for everyone,” O'Donnell said.
