What To Expect From Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference

Nvidia (NVDA) will kick off its annual GPU technology conference (GTC) with a keynote address by founder and CEO Jensen Huang on Monday.

Analysts expect the chipmaker to share updates about its new products, its partnerships with industry leaders, and its sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives during the conference, which runs through Thursday.

Update on Next AI Chip, B100 Blackwell

The chipmaker is expected to provide more details about the B100 chip that could be its most capable AI GPU yet.

The B100 chip is an upgrade from the H200 chip and is to be available at some point in 2024, based on Nvidia's development roadmap released in October of 2023.

"NVIDIA’s current flagship H200 chip in the high-performance computing market adopts the Hopper GPU architecture paired with HBM3e memory chips, considered the most capable chip for AI computing in the industry," according to TrendForce.

Investors could get new details about the chip including pricing, performance, and demand. Nvidia could also provide more color on the chip's hardware such as the liquid cooling component and DRAM memory.

"We expect NVDA’s new Blackwell architecture will provide significant performance gains vs. Hopper," Wedbush analysts said, noting that "NVDA presented the H100 as delivering up to 9X faster training and 30X faster inference performance vs. the A100," the previous version.

Wedbush analysts said they are "interested in any additional information NVDA chooses to provide around the initial demand the company is seeing for the forthcoming B100 (management has already characterized demand as initially expected to significantly exceed supply capabilities)."

They added that the firm will be watching for "any incremental color regarding NVDA’s future GPU and AI products beyond the 2025 roadmap NVDA has presented to date."

AI Leaders Gather

Other AI leaders are set to join the conference as well, which could provide investors more information about the AI space generally and the role Nvidia's tech plays.

Nvidia partners including OpenAI, Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL), Meta (META), Micron Technology (MU), Oracle (ORCL), Super Micro Computer (SMCI), Dell (DELL), and Intel (INTC), among others are to take part in events and workshops during GTC.

While Nvidia has established itself as an early leader in the AI race, the companies within its AI ecosystem have gained amid surging demand for AI tech.

Bank of America analysts said they expect to gauge the "impact of rising competition from custom chips" affecting companies like Broadcom (AVGO) and Marvell (MRVL).

The conference could also shed light on competition within the merchant silicon market from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Google. Bank of America noted the silicon chip makers have claimed their products are "cheaper (especially for AI inference) and/or lower cost (30-50% lower than comparable NVDA hardware)."

Nvidia's Sovereign AI Efforts

During the conference, Nvidia could share details about its sovereign AI initiatives as the scope of AI tech grows rapidly.

Bank of America analysts said they "expect NVDA to highlight TAM expansion opportunities beyond the 4 largest US hyperscalers," Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta.

They added that there could be a multi-billion dollar opportunity for Nvidia with "Tier-2/3 webscalers (CoreWeave, Lambda Labs)" and "sovereign nations."

Sovereign AI "refers to a nation’s capabilities to produce artificial intelligence using its own infrastructure, data, workforce and business networks," Nvidia said.

Nvidia has been vocal about its sovereign AI initiatives. This stance could help set Nvidia apart, especially amid concerns about potential national security risks related to data sharing, with the U.S. government considering whether to force China's ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a ban of the app in the U.S.

Ahead of GTC, Bank of America analysts raised their price target for Nvidia to $1,100 from $925 while Wedbush analysts hiked their target to $1,000 from $850. Both firms gave Nvidia a "buy" rating.

Nvidia shares were 4.5% higher at $917.45 about 15 minutes after Monday's opening bell. The stock has gained about 90% since the start of the year.

UPDATE—March 18, 2024: This article was updated after initial publication to include current share price information.