Who grabbed the most NVIDIA GPUs this year?
This year, Microsoft and Meta became the largest buyers by purchasing 150,000 H100 GPUs from NVIDIA. Tencent purchased 50,000 H800 GPUs, while BIDU-SWR and Alibaba bought 30,000 and 25,000 GPUs respectively. Companies such as Alphabet-C, Amazon, and Oracle also rushed to purchase 50,000 GPUs. Chinese tech giants Tencent, BIDU-SWR, and Alibaba have become major customers of NVIDIA chips. In addition, the startup cloud service provider CoreWeave also acquired 40,000 GPUs. NVIDIA allocated a large number of new cards and directly invested in CoreWeave to support its growth.
If you ask a model developer what gift they want most for Christmas, their answer is definitely an NVIDIA GPU. However, as the most sought-after AI hardware in 2023, NVIDIA GPUs have been snatched up by major tech giants, leaving little opportunity for small companies.
According to the latest report from Omdia Semiconductor Research, Microsoft and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, topped the list by purchasing 150,000 H100 GPUs from NVIDIA.
It is expected that Microsoft would purchase such a large quantity of GPUs, but it is somewhat surprising that Meta, as a non-cloud provider, would acquire such a number.
From the third place onwards, the number of purchases sharply declines. Google, Amazon, and Oracle each managed to secure 50,000 GPUs. Among them, Google made up for some of its chip demand through its self-developed Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).
Chinese tech giants are also major customers of NVIDIA chips. For example, Tencent purchased 50,000 H800 GPUs, while Baidu and Alibaba bought 30,000 and 25,000 GPUs respectively.
It is worth noting that Apple is not on the customer list this time.
Analysis suggests that one reason may be that Apple developers prefer Google's TPUs, but it is more likely that Apple is hesitant to place a large order with NVIDIA due to its unclear AI roadmap. Alternatively, Apple may have decided to rent chips from cloud providers instead of purchasing them.
In addition to the list of major players, a startup cloud service provider called CoreWeave has made its way in. According to Omdia's statistics, CoreWeave acquired 40,000 GPUs, only 10,000 less than Google.
According to a previous article by Wallstreetcn, after setting its sights on the cloud services sector, NVIDIA took an interest in CoreWeave and partnered with Google to support this company known as the "compute power scalper."
In order to support CoreWeave, NVIDIA allocated a large number of new cards to them, even in the midst of an H100 shortage, and directly participated in their investment. In April of this year, NVIDIA became a major participant in CoreWeave's $421 million Series B financing, raising CoreWeave's valuation to $2 billion.