NVIDIA’s Blackwell AI Chips Face Overheating Issues Amid High Demand and Delays

Nvidia’s new Blackwell AI chips, which have already faced delays, have encountered problems with accompanying servers that is overheat. This overheating problem of Nvidia’s AI chips is causing some customers to worry they will not have enough time to get new data centers up and running, as per reports on Sunday.

(Image Credit: nvidia)

Nvidia Corporation’s new Blackwell AI chips are reportedly grappling with overheating issues. The Blackwell graphics processing units (GPU), overheat when connected together in server racks designed to hold up to 72 chips, as per the report.

Nvidia’s Blackwell AI chips overheating issue

Nvidia, the chipmaker has asked its suppliers to change the design of the racks several times to resolve overheating problems. This problem has been reported by Nvidia employees who have been working on the issue, as well as customers and suppliers with knowledge of the issue.

Nvidia’s Blackwell AI chips are experiencing overheating problems when connected to server racks designed to hold up to 72 chips,

Nvidia on the overheating servers

“Nvidia is working with leading cloud service providers as an integral part of our engineering team and process. The engineering iterations are normal and expected,” as per the company’s spokesperson.

Blackwell chips delays

The Blackwell chips, unveiled by Nvidia in March, were initially slated to ship in the second quarter.

However, Nvidia Blackwell chips faced delays, potentially affecting customers such as Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Elon Musk’s xAI.

Why new Nvidia AI chips Matter?

The demand for the Blackwell GPU platform was described as “insane” by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang last month.

Nvidia’s Blackwell chip revenue was projected to hit $6 billion in the next quarter, according to a Morgan Stanley analyst. This projection was made despite Nvidia being fully supply-constrained on new products.

Nvidia’s Blackwell chip takes two squares of silicon the size of the company’s previous offering and binds them into a single component that is 30 times speedier at tasks like providing responses from chatbots.

While NVIDIA often adjusts server designs before a launch, the changes to the Blackwell racks are said to be coming late in the game. That said, Nvidia may still be able to deliver the racks to customers on time, and it hasn’t notified customers of any delay.

An NVIDIA spokesperson declined to comment on whether the Blackwell rack designs have been finalized.

All eyes are on NVIDIA ahead of earnings this Wednesday, November 20th.

This development highlights the complexity of scaling AI hardware to meet surging demand while managing engineering and logistical hurdles.

Nvidia the most valuable company

Earlier this month, Nvidia surpassed Apple to become the world’s most valuable company, largely due to its dominance in the artificial intelligence chip market. Despite these challenges, Blackwell chips promise groundbreaking performance. The AI giant’s current market capitalization stands at $3.482 trillion. Nvidia shares closed Friday’s trading session with a 3.26% decline, settling at $141.98. In after-hours trading, the stock saw a slight uptick, reaching $142.70. NVIDIA’s stock is up 187% year-to-date.