Nvidia stock rises after Jensen Huang says demand for its new AI chips is 'insane'

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the Bipartisan Policy Center on Sept. 27, 2024, in Washington, DC. - Photo: Chip Somodevilla (Getty Images)
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the Bipartisan Policy Center on Sept. 27, 2024, in Washington, DC. - Photo: Chip Somodevilla (Getty Images)

Nvidia’s (NVDA) next-generation artificial intelligence chip is in full production, and demand for it is “insane,” according to CEO Jensen Huang.

“Everybody wants to have the most, and everybody wants to be first,” Huang said about the company’s highly anticipated AI platform, Blackwell, during a Wednesday evening appearance on CNBC.

Shares of the chipmaker were up almost 3% during midday trading Thursday. Nvidia’s stock has climbed over 152% so far this year.

When the company reported second-quarter earnings in August, Huang said that the company had shipped samples of Blackwell to customers during the period and that Blackwell’s production will ramp up in the fourth quarter into fiscal year 2026.

To “improve production yield,” Nvidia made a change to Blackwell’s GPU mask, the chipmaker said. However, “there were no functional changes necessary,” Huang said on a call with analysts.

In early August, the chipmaker saw its shares fall after a report that Blackwell was delayed due to design flaws, possibly pushing deliveries back by at least three months. However, during its earnings call, Nvidia said it expects to “ship several billion dollars in Blackwell revenue,” in the fourth quarter. The company added that demand for its Hopper chips remains strong and that it expects shipments to increase in the second half of the fiscal year.

Huang said demand for Blackwell, which he previously said “is well above supply,” was making customers “emotional” and “tense,” during an interview at Goldman Sachs’s (GS) technology conference in September.

“At a time when the technology is moving so fast, it gives us an opportunity to triple down, to really drive the innovation cycle so that we can increase capabilities, increase our throughput, decrease our costs, decrease our energy consumption,” Huang said during his interview on CNBC (CMCSA). “We’re on a path to do that, and everything’s on track.”

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