Graphics-chip maker Nvidia on Tuesday announced major updates to its Omniverse platform for online collaboration and simulation. Nvidia made the announcements at its digital GTC conference. But Nvidia stock wavered.
Omniverse is Nvidia's approach to the emerging metaverse, a next-generation version of the internet with immersive, 3D virtual worlds.
While other companies like Roblox and Facebook parent Meta Platforms are focusing on video games, entertainment and casual meetups for the metaverse, Nvidia is targeting business applications. That includes allowing companies to make digital twins of their factory floors and other operations to test workflow changes.
On the stock market today, Nvidia stock alternated between modest gains and losses. It ended the regular session down 0.8% to close at 265.24.
Nvidia Debuts Omniverse Cloud
At GTC, Nvidia announced Omniverse Cloud, a suite of cloud-computing services that gives artists, creators, designers and developers instant access to the Nvidia Omniverse platform for 3D design collaboration and simulation.
"Omniverse Cloud will connect tens of millions of designers and creators, and billions of future AIs and robotic systems," Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said in a news release.
He added, "Designers working remotely collaborate as if in the same studio. Factory planners work inside a digital twin of the real plant to design a new production flow. Software engineers test a new software build on the digital twin of a self-driving car before releasing it to the fleet. A new wave of work is coming that can only be done in virtual worlds."
Kroger Partners With Nvidia
Nvidia also showed off Nvidia OVX, a computing system designed to power large-scale digital twins within Omniverse. The OVX system combines high-performance GPU-accelerated computing, graphics and artificial intelligence with high-speed storage access and low-latency networking. GPUs are graphics processing units.
Customers can use OVX to run complex digital twins for modeling entire buildings, factories, cities and even the world, Nvidia said. For instance, DB Netze is building in Omniverse a digital twin of Germany's national railway network. It will be used to test systems for automatic train operation and enable AI-enhanced predictive analysis for unforeseen situations in railway operations.
Meanwhile, grocery store chain Kroger is working with Nvidia to use digital twin simulations and artificial intelligence to improve its retail and logistics operations.
Nvidia Stock News: Latest Graphics Processor
During a keynote presentation at GTC, Huang also introduced new hardware and software for AI and accelerated computing.
He unveiled the Hopper GPU architecture and H100 GPU. The H100 has 80 billion transistors and is made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing with its 4-nanometer scale process technology. Circuit widths on chips are measured in nanometers, which are one-billionth of a meter. The H100 will be available in the third quarter.
The Hopper architecture succeeds the Ampere architecture, which launched two years ago.
Huang also announced the Grace CPU Superchip, a central processing unit for data centers designed for high-performance computing.
"Grace is the ideal CPU for the world's AI infrastructures," Huang said.
Nvidia Stock Retakes Key Support Level
Last Thursday, Nvidia stock retook a key support level when it rose above its 50-day moving average line. Through Monday's close, it had risen for five straight trading sessions.
Nvidia stock ranks third out of 30 stocks in IBD's fabless semiconductor industry group, according to IBD Stock Checkup. It has an IBD Composite Rating of 97 out of 99. The Composite Rating scores a stock's key growth metrics against all other stocks regardless of industry group.
Follow Patrick Seitz on Twitter at @IBD_PSeitz for more stories on consumer technology, software and semiconductor stocks.
