Project Ceiba adds to an already long-standing collaboration between NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services (AWS), with the two tech giants working to develop one of the world’s fastest AI supercomputers. The first-of-its-kind supercomputer is set to feature an astonishing 20,736 B200 GPUs, NVIDIA’s bread and butter.
However, rumors had been swirling that Amazon intended to halt its purchase of the AI chips from NVIDIA which would have undoubtedly been a big blow to the company, and equally would seem like a strange decision considering their partnership on the project and NVIDIA’s market-leading position in AI chip generation.
What has Amazon said in its Project Ceiba update?
Amazon has quickly moved to clarify its position, and it’s good news for NVIDIA. In fact, they haven’t halted orders at all, they merely transitioned their orders toward NVIDIA’s new next-gen Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs), which promise a significant advancement in power over its predecessor.
In a statement reported by Reuters, an AWS spokesman said “To be clear, AWS did not halt any orders from Nvidia. In our close collaboration with Nvidia, we jointly decided to move Project Ceiba from Hopper to Blackwell GPUs, which offer a leap forward in performance”.
Source: GlobalData
Why is this news so important for NVIDIA?
Behind closed doors, NVIDIA will have known all along that AWS did not intend to move away from using its chips, but NVIDIA may be more nervous about the fact that other Big Tech players are doing just that.
This year alone, Meta, Intel and Google have each announced their own chips for AI computing workloads, with each reportedly aiming to dethrone Nvidia’s position as market leader when it comes to producing AI chips.
A recent report from GlobalData suggests that NVIDIA currently holds a 90% market share of AI chip generation, with a forecast this market could grow in value from $33 billion in 2024 up to $116 billion by 2030. With AI chips set for such huge growth over the next few years, this attempt by Big Tech firms to develop their own chips in-house may yet succeed in disrupting NVIDIA’s place at the head of the table.
