If that’s enough to get the record on repeat, read on…
AI Collision 💥
It’s the Friday after Christmas, Boxing Day, and with all the festivities of the holiday season, you might be a little hungover, a little full, a little relaxed…
Us too.
Which means, of course, we’re on holiday because that’s what we do at this time of the year. It means that today we’re getting a little lazy too.
So today’s edition is a brief look-back on our favourite AI Collision sections from the year. Here we go!
All the way back in March, Nvidia blew the roof off the market and unveiled all the incredible advances it’d made in AI at its GTC conference. I can’t wait for GTC 2025, but this year it sent the AI market into overdrive. And you bet, we were there to cover it all…
Beyond the limits of physics: Nvidia’s $10 billion chip
(21 March 2024)
Two hours, three minutes and four seconds.
If you’ve got the time, here’s the Nvidia keynote by founder/CEO Jensen Huang from the company’s GTC developer conference on Tuesday, as promised:
Once you’ve taken the time to watch that, you’ll have a better idea as to just how far in front of the competition Nvidia is.
But, if you couldn’t be bothered with that, CNBC’s Jim Cramer sat down with Huang for an interview shortly after that’s only four minutes and forty-five seconds long.
That’s worth a look too.
Especially when Huang gets along to Nvidia’s latest, greatest chip which he says the company had to go “beyond the limits of physics” to achieve.
Check it out here:
What’s crazy here is the kind of resources that go into a leap forward in processing like this.
When asked just how much R&D goes into a single chip like this, Huang’s estimation was around $10 billion dollars.
Just to make the next generation of processor.
That is astronomical capital expenditure. But it’s also why the estimates are that the B200 AI GPU will sell for somewhere around $30,000 to $40,000 when it’s released in 2025.
That’s because the B200 (the B stands for Blackwell, named after mathematician David Blackwell) has according to Huang, 208 billion transistors.
The TL;DR on transistors is that they are like digital switches, think neurons in the brain, that can be configured to be incredibly “smart”. They can then process a lot of data needed to power software that ultimately comes to us in the form of what we know as “AI”.
To pack 208 billion of them into a chip that’s not MUCH bigger than a Pringle potato chip, that’s quite the herculean feat.
This B200 “AI superchip” leaves Nvidia’s previous “Most powerful GPU in the world today” in the dust. That is, the Hopper 200 – named after Grace Hopper, the computer scientist and mathematician – or H200 as Nvidia’s product name states. The image below shows them both, the slightly smaller H200 in Huang’s left hand, the B200 in his right hand.
The H200 has 80 billion transistors for transistor comparison.
Nvidia says this is another game changer in AI chips. Better power, better efficiency, and with its Blackwell compute platform, just another massive transformation of the AI game.
The stock market had no idea how to treat this product announcement.
At one point Nvidia’s stock was down to $850. Then it hit a high of $905, a 6.5% intraday swing. And then it just closed 1% higher than Monday’s close.
But make no mistake, Nvidia is way in front of the competition. AMD is its next best thing. Its most powerful chip, the MI300X, is packing around 153 billion transistors.
AMD is close on that front, but it’s not just about how big your transistor count it, it’s how you use it…
Simply put, Nvidia continues to spend big on R&D, launch to market ever more impressive and powerful “chips” and be the key driver of the AI revolution.
For now, it doesn’t look like anyone is really all that close to toppling this tech giant.
Also… I wonder how many other famous mathematicians it’s got left to name its products after?
Forecasts are not a reliable indicator of future results. Capital at risk.
Boomers & Busters 💰
**Due to holiday breaks, days off, closed markets and the fact pretty much everyone is on holiday, we’re pausing the Boomers & Busters section until we’re back on deck and keeping a closer eye on the market and market movers in AI.**
From the hive mind 🧠
It’s all about AI. Money flow, human capital, all the big investments from the Mag 7, it’s all heading into AI. Venture capital money is starting to loosen up a bit more too with now 42% of VC money going to AI. For one specific part of tech, that’s a big number, and it suggests the next step of the cycle will be IPOs – that’s when things really start to wind up.
China vs. the US in an all-out AI war. Sounds plausible? You bet. But in such a situation, who would win? You’d think the US, right? Well, maybe not. Maybe China ends up with better AI… maybe it’s already happening.
Donald Trump mugged Masayoshi Son, live, on stage. Masayoshi promising to invest $100 billion in the US, predominately on AI and tech (but really just AI) and Trump squeezed him for $200 billion. What a move. But what a win for the US when Japan’s biggest tech investors (via Softbank of course) sides with the US and not China.
Thanks for your advice and suggestions over 2024 and best wishes to you and yours, and all your colleagues for 25. Keep it coming please. From an oldie :~}
J B
7 days ago
Is it just me that thinks that the commodities which drive many parts of the technology revolution look way too cheap?
With increasing demand for certain materials and mining capacity running behind the curve, how long before prices move up to spur on growth in mining capacity to meet demand.
With our fiat currencies continuing to devalue at what is now a visible rate of decline, It is obvious that many commodities are becoming cheaper when priced in real money at a time when demand is growing.
The new year is looming and 2025 looks set to be a tough year for the stock and bond markets where breaking even in real money terms looks like an increasingly tall order.
Gold, silver and cryptocurrencies look far more appealing than most of the market does. With higher inflation and what appears to be the start of a recession and credit squeeze. Banks will have no choice but to start calling in over leveraged loans to try and cover their growing shortfalls on bond holdings with yields rising and values falling.
After the punitive tax rises in the UK it is difficult to see how the average person on the street breaks even let alone makes a profit after tax, inflation and regulation. I place my trust in God and pray that 2025 is a good year where his light shines through the man made darkness and shows us the way to help each other through these turbulent times. Look after yourselves and each other, happy new year.
Thanks for your advice and suggestions over 2024 and best wishes to you and yours, and all your colleagues for 25. Keep it coming please. From an oldie :~}
Is it just me that thinks that the commodities which drive many parts of the technology revolution look way too cheap?
With increasing demand for certain materials and mining capacity running behind the curve, how long before prices move up to spur on growth in mining capacity to meet demand.
With our fiat currencies continuing to devalue at what is now a visible rate of decline, It is obvious that many commodities are becoming cheaper when priced in real money at a time when demand is growing.
The new year is looming and 2025 looks set to be a tough year for the stock and bond markets where breaking even in real money terms looks like an increasingly tall order.
Gold, silver and cryptocurrencies look far more appealing than most of the market does. With higher inflation and what appears to be the start of a recession and credit squeeze. Banks will have no choice but to start calling in over leveraged loans to try and cover their growing shortfalls on bond holdings with yields rising and values falling.
After the punitive tax rises in the UK it is difficult to see how the average person on the street breaks even let alone makes a profit after tax, inflation and regulation. I place my trust in God and pray that 2025 is a good year where his light shines through the man made darkness and shows us the way to help each other through these turbulent times. Look after yourselves and each other, happy new year.