When Nvidia unveiled its first GPUs based on the Blackwell architecture for AI and HPC earlier this week, it disclosed some of its specifications and performance numbers. But what it did not reveal is when, exactly, it plans to ship these GPUs to clients. On Tuesday the company confirmed that the first Blackwell processors will ship in 2024, but even Meta — one of Nvidia's largest customers — does not expect to get Blackwell this year.
Nvidia's chief financial officer Colette Kress told financial analysts Tuesday that the company expects its Blackwell-based GPUs 'to come to market later this year,' but admitted that shipments of these processors will only ramp up to significant volumes in 2025, reports Reuters. It looks like the bulk of Nvidia's AI and HPC GPU shipments this year will be based on the Hopper microarchitecture.
Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, and one of the largest consumers of Nvidia's AI processors, told Reuters that it did not expect to receive shipments of Nvidia's new flagship GPU this year.
Earlier this year Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, said that his company would purchase 350,000 H100 GPUs this year, in addition to the 150,000 of these processors that were procured in 2023. In total, Zuckerberg expects to have performance equivalent to that of 600,000 H100 processors by the end of the year. Given the vast performance requirements of Meta, the company would absolutely like to get as many Blackwell B200 processors as possible, but apparently the bulk of the company's purchases from Nvidia will be based on the Hopper architecture.
It's noteworthy that, starting from its Ampere-based products in 2020, Nvidia has been offering not only GPUs but actual servers. With Hopper, the company offered processors, servers, and even supercomputers based on H100. With Blackwell, the company has introduced its DGX B200 servers and DGX B200 SuperPODs and while it is unlikely that it will not sell B200 processors to traditional server makers or clients like Google, Meta, and Microsoft, Nvidia may start to put even more emphasis on selling machines rather than GPUs themselves.
