The market is shaking. A few hours before Nvidia's results (11 p.m. in Paris), 7 to 8% of shares, or nearly $500 billion in capitalization, could be traded. “ At this level, market perception is more influenced by the narrative around Nvidia than by market fundamentals, which are excellent and stable », reassures Xiadong Bao, co-manager of the Big Data fund at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management. “ Every word from Jensen Huang [le PDG de Nvidia] will be dissected », he laughs.
Having become for more than a year the barometer of the AI boom, and even that of the entirety of American tech, the processor specialist has seen its value soar to the point of becoming the world's leading capitalization, at more of 3.500 billion dollars. So obviously, the markets are on the lookout for the slightest sign of weakness which could mark a reversal in this exceptional trajectory. This concern has found a target since this summer: the delay in the manufacturing of the company's next generation of processors, Blackwell, which could shift deliveries from the end of 2024 to the end of the first quarter of 2025.
A delay linked initially to an architectural problem, then more recently to server overheating concerns, reported by the media The Information. If these mishaps affect the AI giants, in a hurry to integrate new processors into their supercomputers, they have not yet affected Nvidia's performance. But they shouldn't drag on forever.
Blackwell, Nvidia's new chip to accelerate the race for artificial intelligence
Full order book
« The Blackwells' delay is not a financial issue at the momentconfirm Xiadong Bao. The order for AI processors remains, in any case, significantly higher than production capacity for the next six months. In other words, cInvestors aside, there are no doubts about the company's performance for at least the next two quarters. », he analyzes.
Especially since the market has not tired of the current generation of processors, the H100 and the H200. Far from it, even. Tech giants are racing to create the most powerful AI model, and one way to do so is to use more and more processors. The start-up xAI, founded by Elon Musk, for example, inaugurated a supercomputer made up of 100,000 Nvidia chips, a figure that it already plans to double.
The Blackwells, more efficient and less energy intensive than their predecessors, must greatly accelerate this race to ever bigger. This is why their delay annoys the AI giants who must demonstrate their ability to advance the technology very quickly to justify their investments and the enthusiasm of the markets.
In the absence of Blackwell, they still continue to buy H100 and H200 to maintain their technological advantage. And also, to ensure that we are best served when the new processors enter the market.
« Nvidia works a bit like a luxury company: to buy the most popular bag model, you must first buy the old products », Compares the analyst.
Delays, a thorn removed before it hurts?
Despite the delay, Xiadong Bao points out that the company remains on track for the moment. “ CAmong the assemblers and suppliers who build the necessary infrastructure around the processors, the production increase remains aligned with Nvidia's initial planning. The question of a potential delay will rather arise in the next quarter, which is why the projection will be listened to carefully ».
The good news is that the company delivered its first Blackwell last week to Softbank in Japan. In other words, it is giving the signal that it would be ready to deploy the next generation of processors on a timetable that barely differs from the promises of its leader.
The Information reports that Google has already ordered more than 400,000 GB200s (one of the processors based on the Blackwell architecture), for a little over 10 billion dollars. The AI and cloud giant is on track to spend more than 50 billion on chips and the infrastructure necessary for their deployment in 2024. Meta, for its part, has ordered more than 10 billion dollars, while Microsoft awaits the delivery of more than 55,000 GB200 to create OpenAI's next supercomputer.
Nvidia, winner as long as AI is doing well
As long as artificial intelligence remains at the center of companies' attention, Nvidia will remain king, at least in the medium term, as it holds a lock on its market and The Tribune dissected. “ When you operate at the size of Nvidia's largest customers, with tens of billions of dollars in investments, switching to another software is too dangerous. We must always remember that these actors are in a race to get there first, so they are risk averse to going to a new platform », conclut Xiadong Bao.
As for the upcoming arrival of Trump, it seems rather positive for the company. Joshua Kushner, first investor in OpenAI's latest fundraising (via his Thrive Capital fund), is none other than the brother of Jared Kushner, married to Ivanka Trump and therefore son-in-law of the future president. As for Elon Musk, founder of the highly funded xAI, he continues to appear alongside Donald Trump, and has asserted himself as one of the strong men of the campaign, to the point of obtaining a role in the next administration.
