During a recent press briefing, Nvidia presented a remarkable demonstration of the AI training capabilities of its Nvidia H100 GPUs, also known as Hopper.
A cluster of 3,584 Hopper GPUs managed to train a GPT-3-based model within a mere 11 minutes, showcasing their efficiency in handling AI tasks. Nvidia also revealed an updated roadmap indicating plans for future products, including the anticipated successor to the GeForce RTX 40-series Ada Lovelace GPUs, famed for their superior gaming performance. The company's roadmap suggests a 2025 release for the "Ada Lovelace-Next" graphics cards. Provided Nvidia maintains its current naming convention, these upcoming offerings are expected to be known as the GeForce RTX 50 series. The codename for the successor to Ada Lovelace remains uncertain, however, the codename Blackwell—found in a previous Nvidia leak—seems to be the likely candidate for the successor to Hopper, marked as "Hopper Next" on the roadmap.
Nvidia's historical release pattern for consumer graphics cards involves a two-year interval. This schedule can be observed in the past launches of Pascal in 2016, Turing in 2018, Ampere in 2020, and Ada Lovelace in 2022. A 2025 launch for the successor to Ada Lovelace would indicate a break from this cycle, lengthening the release cadence to roughly three years or 30 months, assuming an early 2025 release.
While consumer GPU sales appear to lag, Nvidia's AI division is witnessing growth, propelled by the high demand for GPUs in AI applications. Notably, ByteDance has allegedly ordered Nvidia GPUs worth $1 billion in this year alone. In spite of export restrictions, Nvidia is steadily expanding its AI business in China, one of the world's most significant markets. To meet export criteria, Nvidia has revised its AI product lineup, introducing SKUs like the H800 or A800. Export regulations have surprisingly turned in Nvidia's favor, encouraging customers to buy more GPUs to match the performance of original models. Consequently, Nvidia may favor compute GPU production over gaming GPUs.
The current lack of strong competition from AMD's RDNA 3 products and Intel places Nvidia in an advantageous position, allowing them to concentrate more on the compute market segment and potentially delay the launch of consumer-targeted GPUs. Nvidia has recently broadened its GeForce RTX 40-series product range, including models like the GeForce RTX 4060, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, and the potential GeForce RTX 4050. High-end options such as the RTX 4080 Ti, GeForce RTX 4090 Ti, or even a Titan RTX Ada could be under consideration. Leaked information about an Nvidia quad-slot cooler suggests the development of robust GPUs. If necessary, Nvidia could borrow from its past strategy with Turing and rejuvenate the Ada Lovelace lineup with a 'Super' upgrade, boosting its capabilities further. Nonetheless, a genuine successor to the Lovelace architecture is not predicted to emerge this year or the next.
