A report has emerged from sources in Taiwan that NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang, recently visited the country to ensure 3nm orders at TSMC for their next-gen GPU. Besides talking with TSMC, Jensen also visited several AIBs to get an update regarding the inventories of existing GPUs and how they are dealing with them.
NVIDIA CEO, Jensen Huang, Has Reportedly Visited Taiwan To Secure TSMC 3nm Wafer Orders
As reported by MyDrivers, it seems like NVIDIA's CEO recently paid a visit to Taiwan to meet with top executives of TSMC and their AIB partners. AMD's CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, was recently reported to have similar plans to secure next-gen wafer orders, mainly TSMC 3nm and 2nm. One of the main agendas of the visit to TSMC (Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) was to secure additional N5 and 4N capacities while also initiating talks to secure next-gen 3nm wafers.
There are a lot of customers lining up to have their next-gen chips produced on TSMC's bleeding-edge 3nm process node and NVIDIA definitely wants to be one of them. As such, the company has to plan ahead and start talking with TSMC ahead of the production phase. While TSMC's 3nm node won't be mass-produced until next year, we won't see next-gen products based on the new node from Apple, AMD, or NVIDIA till 2024. So it looks like there will be a long wait till these companies start talking about their next-gen products.
In the meanwhile, NVIDIA & AMD both have released their latest GPUs and CPUs based on TSMC's 4N and N5 process nodes and those will have at least a 2-year life cycle before getting replaced by something new. We can't say for sure what the next-generation product from NVIDIA that utilizes the 3nm process node would be but it is likely that it could be the Blackwell GPUs that was hinted at in a previous leak.
NVIDIA's CEO also reportedly visited several AIB partners who are responsible for making their graphics cards. The reason for the visit was to ensure that the GeForce RTX 30 GPU inventory situation was being handled smoothly. As we know, NVIDIA was left with a large stock of GPUs when crypto crashed and the PC market declined. NVIDIA's AIB partners have recently started to release various GeForce RTX 30 series products including the RTX 3070 Ti (GA102), RTX 3060 Ti (GDDR6X), and RTX 3060 (8 GB) which will be available in both DIY and OEM segments. These will help AIBs clear out a large portion of their inventory and focus on NVIDIA's RTX 40 series GPUs.
The company also recently cut down the production capacity of its GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card and shifted it to the Data Center HPC/AI chips to fulfill the last remaining orders o the A100 & H100 GPUs prior to the China ban.
Lastly, NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang also reportedly ensured their AIBs full support on the recent RTX 4080 12 GB graphics card cancellation. NVIDIA already promised to help bear the majority of the production costs that their AIBs endured. The AIBs will definitely see this as a positive gesture by NVIDIA's CEO and will ensure that the next launch goes more smoothly.
