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In brief: Any shortage of in-demand products can cause tension among customers, especially when the items in question are Nvidia's GPUs. CEO Jensen Huang says the issue has reached a point where businesses such as data center operators are becoming "emotional" due to the lack of Team Green's chips.
Speaking at a Goldman Sachs tech conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Huang talked about the incredible demand for Nvidia's products, noting that every customer wants to be the first to receive them and have more than anyone else. It's a demand that Team Green is often struggling to meet.
"We have a lot of people on our shoulders, and everybody is counting on us," Huang said. "Demand is so great that delivery of our components, our technology, infrastructure, and software is really emotional for people."
The next-generation Blackwell AI chips have been in especially high demand. However, Huang assured customers that the suppliers to which Nvidia has outsourced production of these chips are making progress in catching up.
"We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It's tense. We're trying to do the best we can," Huang said.
At the start of August, two anonymous sources involved with Nvidia's chip and server hardware production said that the Blackwell AI chips were facing significant delays due to design flaws discovered late in manufacturing. Manufacturer TSMC had apparently discovered a problem with the processor die connecting two Blackwell GPUs on a GB200 chip.
It was believed that the production issue would push Blackwell AI chips' shipment dates back by two to three months, delaying their arrival to the first quarter of 2025. That's bad news for the likes of Google and Meta, who have both reportedly spent $10 billion on orders for GB200 chips.
Also read: AMD confirms it won't prioritize competing with Nvidia's top gaming GPUs
Nvidia tried to alleviate fears around Blackwell's delays during an earnings call last month when it said it would ship billions of dollars worth of the new GPUs by the fourth quarter. Whether it's able to live up to this promise will likely have a big impact on the company's share price.
There have been questions recently about whether the massive amounts of money being spent on AI hardware and software is offering a good return on investment – concerns that the AI bubble might burst rose following Nvidia's and other tech giants' crashing stock prices earlier this month. Huang's response was that companies have no choice other than to embrace "accelerated computing."
The Nvidia boss was also asked about the prospect of China invading Taiwan, which could cut Nvidia off from TSMC. He said that much of Nvidia's tech is developed in-house, allowing it to easily switch orders to an alternative supplier, though he admitted this would likely result in a reduction in quality.