Tech start-ups dream of generating the sort of gains US chipmaker Nvidia has reported this year. The hype cycle of artificial intelligence, powered by Nvidia chips, is nowhere near over. In the current quarter, Nvidia expects revenues to rise by around 170 per cent on last year. Not only is this better than peers, it exceeds average growth for start-ups too.
Nvidia is reaping the rewards of plans put in motion decades ago. After the company listed in 1999 it pioneered the graphics processing unit (GPU), starting with the GeForce 256. GPUs were later configured so they could cope with the data needed to train large language models for generative AI.
Nvidia’s data centre unit — which includes advanced AI chips — grew 171 per cent to over $10bn in the last quarter.