Nvidia’s Data Center GPU Frenzy: A100, H100 Sales Surge, Prolonging Delivery Times

A few days ago, Nvidia announced its financial results for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2024 (ending October 29, 2023), setting yet another revenue record. The income reached $18.12 billion, a staggering 206% increase year-over-year and a 34% increase from the previous quarter. The data center business once again shone as a highlight, generating revenue of $14.51 billion, far surpassing last year’s $3.8 billion and exceeding the market expectation of $12.7 billion. This represents a colossal 324% increase year-over-year and a 38% increase sequentially.

As reported by TomsHardware, according to statistics from Omdia, Nvidia sold approximately 500,000 A100 and H100 compute cards in the third quarter of 2023. Such high market demand has resulted in extended delivery periods, with servers built on the H100 architecture taking about 36 to 52 weeks for delivery.

Omdia notes that Meta and Microsoft are the largest purchasers of Nvidia’s H100 compute cards, having bought 150,000 each, far exceeding the purchases made by Google, Amazon, Oracle, and Tencent, who each bought 50,000 units. It’s noteworthy that the H100 compute cards are primarily supplied to hyperscale cloud service providers, leaving server OEMs like Lenovo, HP, and Dell unable to procure sufficient quantities of compute cards to fulfill their server orders. However, it’s important to mention that these major buyers generally have their custom chip programs and a variety of coprocessors. In the long term, the number of Nvidia chips they purchase might decrease over time.

Omdia anticipates that the shipment of A100 and H100 compute cards will surpass 500,000 units in the fourth quarter of 2023. The robust demand is leading to delivery cycles for related servers extending up to 52 weeks. Despite an expected 17% to 20% decline in overall server shipments in 2023, revenue is projected to increase by 6% to 8%.