The recent AI boom has paid dividends for Nvidia, with the company reportedly shipping 3.76 million data center GPUs in 2023 alone. This is over a million more graphics processors than it shipped to this market in 2022, growing its sales by over 42%. According toHPCwire, these numbers show that Nvidia has retained its 98% market share of the data center GPU market in 2023 from the previous year.
Aside from its lead in the data center market, Nvidia has alsocornered 88% of the desktop GPU market, withthe next-generation RTX 50-seriesexpected to arrive later this year. Because of this massive demand, the company has seen record growth, with Nvidiahitting $60.9 billion in revenuein 2023 — a full 126% higher than in 2022.
We’ve seen this growth despite theU.S. ban on Nvidia’s exportsof AI and other advanced chips to China. Furthermore, the company still had to deal withan AI GPU shortageas TSMC’s output could not keep pace with demand.
Nevertheless, TSMC predicted that Nvidia will becomethe world’s largest semiconductor firmin 2023. As of 24Q1, Nvidia is already in third place among the world’s most valuable companies and will likelyovertake Apple soon.
But even if Nvidia has cornered the data center market, it cannot rest on its laurels. AMD is on track to deliver vastlymore power-efficient chips— something that Nvidia’s H100 GPU is struggling with, as itconsumes 700 wattswhen running at capacity. Intel is also touting its Gaudi 3 AI processor which will costhalf the price of the H100: a tempting offer for companies that don’t want to spend over $30,000 per H100 card.
Aside from the typical semiconductor firms, we also see data center providers joining in the data center hardware race.Microsoftrevealedthe Maia 100 GPU last year, which it made for AI applications, and is likely one of the chips it will use in itsupcoming $100-billion data centerproject. Even Amazon and Google have their own homegrown chips, with the former makingcustom chips for AWS, and the latter planning touse its own data center server processorsas early as next year.
However, Nvidia claims that thesechips are still not as powerful as its GPUsin AI performance. They won’t be as adaptable, either. So, even though other firms might offer alternatives to Nvidia, the company’s GPUs will likely stay on top in the coming years.
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Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
