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Malaysian Reserve
5 days ago
- Business
- Malaysian Reserve
Why is Nvidia the king of AI chips, and can it last?
INVESTORS poured money into Nvidia Corp and made it the world's most valuable chipmaker, convinced that its lead in artificial intelligence (AI) computing would deliver riches. Attention has now shifted to whether AI itself will pay off for companies investing tens of billions of dollars in the vast data centres required to power it. For now, Nvidia remains the preeminent picks-and-shovels seller in an AI gold rush. Revenue is still soaring, and the orderbook for the company's accelerator chips is bulging. The company's continued success depends on CEO Jensen Huang's ability to manage a myriad of challenges. Huang is pushing forward the capability of his chips to prove to his biggest customers, including Microsoft Corp and Inc, that the products are the best they can get. That's doubly important because those companies are developing in-house technology that could eventually replace some of Nvidia's less-advanced semiconductors. He's trying to help a broader range of companies to more easily use AI computing in their businesses, while navigating geopolitical tensions that threaten to cut Nvidia off from major global markets. Here's a look at what's been driving Nvidia's spectacular growth and the challenges ahead. What are Nvidia's most popular AI chips? The current moneymaker is the Hopper H100, the name of which is a nod to computer science pioneer Grace Hopper. It's a beefier version of a graphics processing unit that originated in personal computers used by video gamers. Hopper is being replaced at the top of the lineup with the Blackwell range, named for mathematician David Blackwell. Both Hopper and Blackwell include technology that turns clusters of computers that use Nvidia chips into single units that can process vast volumes of data and make computations at high speeds. That makes them a perfect fit for the power-intensive task of training the neural networks that underpin the latest generation of AI products. Founded in 1993, Nvidia pioneered this market with investments dating back more than a decade, when it bet that the ability to do work in parallel would one day make its chips valuable in applications outside of gaming. The Santa Clara, California-based company will sell the Blackwell products in a variety of options, including as part of the GB200 superchip, which combines two Blackwell GPUs with one Grace CPU, a general-purpose central processing unit. (The Grace CPU is also named for Grace Hopper.) Why are Nvidia's AI chips special? So-called generative AI platforms learn tasks such as translating text, summarising reports and synthesising images by ingesting vast quantities of preexisting material. The more they absorb, the better they perform. They develop through trial and error, making billions of attempts to achieve proficiency and sucking up huge amounts of computing power along the way. Blackwell delivers 2.5 times Hopper's performance in training AI, according to Nvidia. The new design has so many transistors — the tiny switches that give semiconductors their ability to process information — that it can't be produced conventionally as a single unit. It's actually two chips married to one other through a connection that ensures they act seamlessly as one, the company said. How did Nvidia become a leader in AI? Nvidia was already the king of graphics chips, the components that generate the images you see on a computer screen. The most powerful of those are built with thousands of processing cores that perform multiple simultaneous threads of computation. This allows them to produce the complex 3D renderings like shadows and reflections that are a feature of today's video games. What are Nvidia's competitors doing? Nvidia controls about 90% of the market for data centre GPUs, according to market research firm IDC. Dominant cloud computing providers and major Nvidia customers such as Amazon's AWS, Alphabet Inc's Google Cloud and Microsoft's Azure are trying to develop their own chips, as are Nvidia rivals Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) and Intel Corp. How does Nvidia stay ahead of its competitors? Nvidia has updated its offerings, including software to support the hardware, at a pace that no other firm has yet been able to match. The company has also devised cluster systems that help its customers to buy chips in bulk and deploy them quickly. Huang keeps up a frantic pace of appearances at tech shows and company events all over the world to tout new offerings and tie ups. Nvidia has committed to annual introductions of new main products for years to come, reflecting what Huang says is an unprecedented commitment to advancing innovation in the industry. Such pledges serve as a warning to rivals that they are trying to catch a moving train. — BLOOMBERG This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Opinion - Missed shots at the moon are still scores for commercial space companies
The next phase of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services moon exploration program began on Jan. 15, with the launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost. It continued with the launch of the Intuitive Machines Athena lander on Feb. 26. Since the Blue Ghost also had the iSpace Resilience lander as a rideshare, at one point three spacecraft were headed for the lunar surface. Firefly's Blue Ghost landed in the Mare Crisium, northeast of the Sea of Tranquility, in what was described as a clockwork landing with no anomalies in the early morning hours of March 2. Firefly engineers immediately began activating the 10 payloads on the lander for a 14-day campaign of scientific discovery. Intuitive Machines IM-2 Athena touched down on the moon's Mons Mouton region of the lunar south pole on Thursday. Its main mission will be to hunt for lunar ice, a crucial resource needed by future moon explorers. Unfortunately, as with the first Intuitive Machines landing attempt, the Athena proved to be an incomplete success. 'We don't believe we're in the correct attitude' on the lunar surface, Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said. Later it was found that Athena had landed in a nearby crater and tipped over. As of this writing, it is uncertain how much science can be returned from the mission. Intuitive Machines reports that given 'the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels and extreme cold temperatures in the crater,' it does not expect Athena to recharge. The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission. Athena includes a mini-rover called MAPP, which was designed to collect samples from the vicinity of the lander. MAPP also would take 3-D images and video for transmission to Earth. The probe also carries a hopper vehicle named Grace, named after Adm. Grace Hopper, a pioneering software engineer. Grace uses thrusters to venture from place to place in the vicinity of the landing site, including inside a permanently shadowed crater that may contain water ice. The Athena probe comes equipped with several instruments including the Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT) and the Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo). The probe also contains 4-G cellular equipment developed by Nokia and NASA to provide more bandwidth communications than ever before from the lunar surface. Along with the unsuccessful Astrobotic Peregrine and the partially successful Intuitive Machines Odysseus missions of early 2024, it looks like the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program still has mixed results, with one unsuccessful attempt, two partially successful attempts and one entirely successful. The original assumption was that commercial lunar landings would be, to use a basketball term, 'shots on goal' with some of them failing. Obviously, the more successful missions there are, the more lunar exploration advances. The four Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions (so far) do offer proof of the SpaceX effect, how the drastic lowering of launch costs by Elon Musk's launch company has enabled more commercial missions. The Astrobotic Peregrine was launched by a Vulcan Centaur, but the subsequent three were lofted to the moon by SpaceX Falcon 9s. Even though Musk regards the moon as a 'distraction' to his desire to go to Mars, his launch company has enabled lunar exploration as never before. The next two Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions, scheduled to occur later this year, the Astrobotic Griffin and Intuitive Machines' next lander, dubbed Prism, will also launch on SpaceX Falcon rockets. Other Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions are scheduled for the next few years. Resilience, the Japanese lander that caught a ride on the Blue Ghost launch, is due to land on the moon no earlier than June 2025. Unless NASA undertakes a Musk-inspired pivot away from the moon and exclusively toward Mars, human beings will follow the Commercial Lunar Payload Services robot explorers, The Artemis II crewed lunar circumnavigation mission is scheduled for 2026. Artemis III, so long as it is undertaken, will be a world-historic event toward which all of these missions are leading. Currently, the first crewed moon landing in 55 years is scheduled for 2027. The next crewed moon landing will be the greatest and most followed event (so far) of the 21st century. Just as Apollo 11 provided a balm to all the turmoil and chaos of the 1960s, Artemis III will provide the same service for the current century, which started with the attacks on 9/11 and, in some measure, has only gone downhill since. And that will only be the beginning if we follow wise policy. A lunar settlement would be a center of commerce, science and technological innovation that would enrich our civilization beyond the power of evaluation. The conquest of the moon, not to mention Mars and beyond, will help to ensure the rest of the 21st century is much better than the first 25 years have been. Mark R. Whittington is the author of 'Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?' as well as 'The Moon, Mars and Beyond,' and, most recently, 'Why is America Going Back to the Moon?' He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
09-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Opinion - Missed shots at the moon are still scores for commercial space companies
The next phase of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services moon exploration program began on Jan. 15, with the launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost. It continued with the launch of the Intuitive Machines Athena lander on Feb. 26. Since the Blue Ghost also had the iSpace Resilience lander as a rideshare, at one point three spacecraft were headed for the lunar surface. Firefly's Blue Ghost landed in the Mare Crisium, northeast of the Sea of Tranquility, in what was described as a clockwork landing with no anomalies in the early morning hours of March 2. Firefly engineers immediately began activating the 10 payloads on the lander for a 14-day campaign of scientific discovery. Intuitive Machines IM-2 Athena touched down on the moon's Mons Mouton region of the lunar south pole on Thursday. Its main mission will be to hunt for lunar ice, a crucial resource needed by future moon explorers. Unfortunately, as with the first Intuitive Machines landing attempt, the Athena proved to be an incomplete success. 'We don't believe we're in the correct attitude' on the lunar surface, Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said. Later it was found that Athena had landed in a nearby crater and tipped over. As of this writing, it is uncertain how much science can be returned from the mission. Intuitive Machines reports that given 'the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels and extreme cold temperatures in the crater,' it does not expect Athena to recharge. The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission. Athena includes a mini-rover called MAPP, which was designed to collect samples from the vicinity of the lander. MAPP also would take 3-D images and video for transmission to Earth. The probe also carries a hopper vehicle named Grace, named after Adm. Grace Hopper, a pioneering software engineer. Grace uses thrusters to venture from place to place in the vicinity of the landing site, including inside a permanently shadowed crater that may contain water ice. The Athena probe comes equipped with several instruments including the Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT) and the Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo). The probe also contains 4-G cellular equipment developed by Nokia and NASA to provide more bandwidth communications than ever before from the lunar surface. Along with the unsuccessful Astrobotic Peregrine and the partially successful Intuitive Machines Odysseus missions of early 2024, it looks like the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program still has mixed results, with one unsuccessful attempt, two partially successful attempts and one entirely successful. The original assumption was that commercial lunar landings would be, to use a basketball term, 'shots on goal' with some of them failing. Obviously, the more successful missions there are, the more lunar exploration advances. The four Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions (so far) do offer proof of the SpaceX effect, how the drastic lowering of launch costs by Elon Musk's launch company has enabled more commercial missions. The Astrobotic Peregrine was launched by a Vulcan Centaur, but the subsequent three were lofted to the moon by SpaceX Falcon 9s. Even though Musk regards the moon as a 'distraction' to his desire to go to Mars, his launch company has enabled lunar exploration as never before. The next two Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions, scheduled to occur later this year, the Astrobotic Griffin and Intuitive Machines' next lander, dubbed Prism, will also launch on SpaceX Falcon rockets. Other Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions are scheduled for the next few years. Resilience, the Japanese lander that caught a ride on the Blue Ghost launch, is due to land on the moon no earlier than June 2025. Unless NASA undertakes a Musk-inspired pivot away from the moon and exclusively toward Mars, human beings will follow the Commercial Lunar Payload Services robot explorers, The Artemis II crewed lunar circumnavigation mission is scheduled for 2026. Artemis III, so long as it is undertaken, will be a world-historic event toward which all of these missions are leading. Currently, the first crewed moon landing in 55 years is scheduled for 2027. The next crewed moon landing will be the greatest and most followed event (so far) of the 21st century. Just as Apollo 11 provided a balm to all the turmoil and chaos of the 1960s, Artemis III will provide the same service for the current century, which started with the attacks on 9/11 and, in some measure, has only gone downhill since. And that will only be the beginning if we follow wise policy. A lunar settlement would be a center of commerce, science and technological innovation that would enrich our civilization beyond the power of evaluation. The conquest of the moon, not to mention Mars and beyond, will help to ensure the rest of the 21st century is much better than the first 25 years have been. Mark R. Whittington is the author of 'Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?' as well as 'The Moon, Mars and Beyond,' and, most recently, 'Why is America Going Back to the Moon?' He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
09-03-2025
- Science
- The Hill
Missed shots at the moon are still scores for commercial space companies
The next phase of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services moon exploration program began on Jan. 15, with the launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost. It continued with the launch of the Intuitive Machines Athena lander on Feb. 26. Since the Blue Ghost also had the iSpace Resilience lander as a rideshare, at one point three spacecraft were headed for the lunar surface. Firefly's Blue Ghost landed in the Mare Crisium, northeast of the Sea of Tranquility, in what was described as a clockwork landing with no anomalies in the early morning hours of March 2. Firefly engineers immediately began activating the 10 payloads on the lander for a 14-day campaign of scientific discovery. Intuitive Machines IM-2 Athena touched down on the moon's Mons Mouton region of the lunar south pole on Thursday. Its main mission will be to hunt for lunar ice, a crucial resource needed by future moon explorers. Unfortunately, as with the first Intuitive Machines landing attempt, the Athena proved to be an incomplete success. 'We don't believe we're in the correct attitude' on the lunar surface, Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said. Later it was found that Athena had landed in a nearby crater and tipped over. As of this writing, it is uncertain how much science can be returned from the mission. Intuitive Machines reports that given 'the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels and extreme cold temperatures in the crater,' it does not expect Athena to recharge. The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission. Athena includes a mini-rover called MAPP, which was designed to collect samples from the vicinity of the lander. MAPP also would take 3-D images and video for transmission to Earth. The probe also carries a hopper vehicle named Grace, named after Adm. Grace Hopper, a pioneering software engineer. Grace uses thrusters to venture from place to place in the vicinity of the landing site, including inside a permanently shadowed crater that may contain water ice. The Athena probe comes equipped with several instruments including the Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT) and the Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo). The probe also contains 4-G cellular equipment developed by Nokia and NASA to provide more bandwidth communications than ever before from the lunar surface. Along with the unsuccessful Astrobotic Peregrine and the partially successful Intuitive Machines Odysseus missions of early 2024, it looks like the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program still has mixed results, with one unsuccessful attempt, two partially successful attempts and one entirely successful. The original assumption was that commercial lunar landings would be, to use a basketball term, 'shots on goal' with some of them failing. Obviously, the more successful missions there are, the more lunar exploration advances. The four Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions (so far) do offer proof of the SpaceX effect, how the drastic lowering of launch costs by Elon Musk's launch company has enabled more commercial missions. The Astrobotic Peregrine was launched by a Vulcan Centaur, but the subsequent three were lofted to the moon by SpaceX Falcon 9s. Even though Musk regards the moon as a 'distraction' to his desire to go to Mars, his launch company has enabled lunar exploration as never before. The next two Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions, scheduled to occur later this year, the Astrobotic Griffin and Intuitive Machines' next lander, dubbed Prism, will also launch on SpaceX Falcon rockets. Other Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions are scheduled for the next few years. Resilience, the Japanese lander that caught a ride on the Blue Ghost launch, is due to land on the moon no earlier than June 2025. Unless NASA undertakes a Musk-inspired pivot away from the moon and exclusively toward Mars, human beings will follow the Commercial Lunar Payload Services robot explorers, The Artemis II crewed lunar circumnavigation mission is scheduled for 2026. Artemis III, so long as it is undertaken, will be a world-historic event toward which all of these missions are leading. Currently, the first crewed moon landing in 55 years is scheduled for 2027. The next crewed moon landing will be the greatest and most followed event (so far) of the 21st century. Just as Apollo 11 provided a balm to all the turmoil and chaos of the 1960s, Artemis III will provide the same service for the current century, which started with the attacks on 9/11 and, in some measure, has only gone downhill since. And that will only be the beginning if we follow wise policy. A lunar settlement would be a center of commerce, science and technological innovation that would enrich our civilization beyond the power of evaluation. The conquest of the moon, not to mention Mars and beyond, will help to ensure the rest of the 21st century is much better than the first 25 years have been.
Yahoo
09-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
2 AI Chip Stocks to Buy on the Dip
After a great run over the past couple of years, top artificial intelligence (AI) stocks have stumbled out of the gate so far in 2025. High valuations, concerns about the economy (and demand for semiconductors), and the near-term direction of spending on data centers are contributing to negative sentiment for these stocks right now. While the semiconductor industry is cyclical, it has grown for decades, and AI is the catalyst that should lift leading chip stocks higher over the next decade. Dell'Oro Group believes spending on data center infrastructure could surpass $1 trillion in five years. The following stocks are well-positioned to profit from this opportunity. Shares of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) are down 23% from their recent highs. While the near-term impact of President Donald Trump's tariff policies is still unknown for Nvidia and the broader semiconductor industry, Nvidia's lead in graphics processing units (GPUs) provides ample opportunities for long-term growth and shareholder returns. Nvidia said during its fourth-quarter earnings call in February that demand for its chips needed for AI inferencing is accelerating. Inferencing is where most of the value for chip companies will come over the long term. This is the stage of AI development in which models become smart enough to make predictions on their own from new data, and it requires significantly more computing power. Nvidia says AI models that can reason at a very high level will require 100 times more compute per task. This is why companies are investing in its new Blackwell computing platform, which provides up to 25 times more throughput for data units, or tokens, while lowering costs compared to older hardware. Revenue from Blackwell hit $11 billion in the fourth quarter and should increase as production ramps this year. Large cloud service providers, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet's Google, totaled nearly half of Nvidia's $35 billion in data center revenue last quarter. But there are plenty more tech companies scrambling to get their hands on the company's powerful GPUs. xAI is adopting Nvidia's GB200 chip to power its Grok AI models. Meta Platforms is using Nvidia's Grace Hopper super chip for running ads on Instagram and Facebook. Meta said it plans to spend between $60 billion to $65 billion in capital expenditures this year to support plans in generative AI and other business operations, and that's to Nvidia's benefit. Overall, Nvidia's total revenue grew 12% over the previous quarter and 78% year over year to reach $39.3 billion in Q4. Blackwell will be a key driver in pushing Nvidia's revenue up to approximately $43 billion in Q1, based on company guidance. The recent dip has brought the stock's valuation to 24 times this year's consensus earnings estimate. That's below the S&P 500's trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) of 29, which seems like a steal considering Nvidia's $1 trillion opportunity in the data center market. Marvell Technology (NASDAQ: MRVL) makes various chip products that help companies move data faster and more efficiently. It sells semiconductor products in the data center and wireless communications markets. The stock has been climbing over the past year on growing demand for its custom AI chips and digital signal processors used in server racks and AI workloads. The stock is down 33% year to date after the company posted its fourth-quarter financial results. Revenue beat expectations, but investors were looking for higher revenue guidance for the first quarter. The company is still positioned for continued growth in its data center business, which makes the dip an excellent buying opportunity. From a long-term perspective, Marvell is in a strong position. The company is ramping production of its custom AI silicon programs, such as accelerated processing units (XPUs) and an Arm-based central processing unit (CPU), which could drive strong demand over the next few years. Marvell is also developing more advanced ways to transfer data using optics instead of traditional cable wiring, which should open up more opportunities to grow its data center revenue over the long term. It's this type of innovation that drove revenue up 27% year over year in Q4, led by a 78% increase in the data center business. Meanwhile, Marvell's other markets are mixed. Consumer end markets are experiencing revenue declines, while chips sold into the enterprise networking and carrier infrastructure markets are continuing to recover. Overall, the stock's sell-off appears to be more valuation-driven than anything else. Heading into the year, Marvell shares fetched a sky-high 80 times earnings multiple based on this year's consensus estimate. But after the dip, investors can buy shares at a more reasonable forward P/E of 26. Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $690,624!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 821% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 167% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of March 3, 2025 Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Ballard has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Marvell Technology and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 2 AI Chip Stocks to Buy on the Dip was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
