[HN Gopher] Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just...
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Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs and
components
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 159 points
Date : 2025-11-14 13:18 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tomshardware.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tomshardware.com)
| re-thc wrote:
| Soon Nvidia will sell AI itself instead of servers.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Considering they have a pure service in selling Geforce Now
| (game streaming), that doesn't seem in any way far fetched.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| To a point / by some definitions of the phrase AI they already
| do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Learning_Super_Sampling
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if we see some major acquisitions or
| mergers happening in the next few years by one of the
| independent AI vendors like OpenAI and Nvidia.
| Palomides wrote:
| why? selling GPUs is way more profitable
| reactordev wrote:
| Why sell when you can rent?
| Palomides wrote:
| so you don't get stuck with many billions of dollars in
| useless GPUs and data centers when the bubble pops
| re-thc wrote:
| That's what Coreweave etc does and Nvidia already invests
| in them (i.e. has a stake).
| giuliomagnifico wrote:
| Sell a whole infrastructure is more profitable than sell
| components, and also put the customers in "sandboxes" with
| you.
| hvenev wrote:
| Don't they already sell servers? https://www.nvidia.com/en-
| us/data-center/dgx-platform/
| p4ul wrote:
| I had the same reaction. Haven't they been selling DGX boxes
| for almost 10 years now? And they've been selling the rack-
| scale NVL72 beast for probably a few years.[1]
|
| What is changing?
|
| [1] https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/gb200-nvl72/
| AlanYx wrote:
| When nVIDIA sells DGX directly they usually still partner
| with SuperMicro, etc. for deployment and support. It sounds
| like they're going to be offering those services in-house
| now, competing with their resellers on that front.
| reactordev wrote:
| Cutting out the Vendor like SuperMicro or HPE, they are going
| straight to consumer now.
| rlupi wrote:
| Hyperscalers and similar clients don't use DGX, but their own
| designs that integrate better with their custom designed
| datacenters
|
| https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/products/mgx/
| lvl155 wrote:
| We're not far from Nvidia exclusively bundling ChatGPT. It's a
| classic playbook from Microsoft.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Why would Nvidia ever agree to that?
| ptero wrote:
| Chatgpt is not the only game in town. Any exclusivity deal will
| likely backfire against chatgpt.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they'd like to keep selling chips to all of
| OpenAI's competitors too.
| gruturo wrote:
| ChatGPT doesn't really have much of a moat. If it becomes
| Microsoft or Nvidia exclusive, it just opens an opportunity for
| its competitors. I barely notice which LLM I'm using unless
| it's something super specific where one is known to be
| stronger.
| dmboyd wrote:
| Aren't they already supply constrained? Seems like this would be
| counterproductive in further limiting supply vs a strategy of
| commoditizing your complements. This seems closer to PR designed
| to boost share price rather than a cogent strategy.
| MattRix wrote:
| They're only supply constrained on the chips themselves.
| Selling fully integrated racks allows them to get even more
| money per chip.
| dboreham wrote:
| In MBA-speak this is "capturing more of the value chain".
| mikeryan wrote:
| Huh. I view it the other way. If you're supply constrained go
| straight to the consumer and capture the value that the
| middlemen building on top of your tech are currently profiting
| from.
| energy123 wrote:
| > Further limiting supply
|
| Even if they don't increase their GPU production capacity,
| that's not "limiting" supply. It's keeping it the same. Only
| now they can sell each unit for a larger profit margin.
| jpecar wrote:
| Servers? I thought they left even racks behind, they're now
| selling these "AI factories".
| czbond wrote:
| Didn't they watch Silicon Valley to learn that lesson? Don't sell
| the box.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| What software will those Nvidia servers run?
|
| Are they creating their own software stack or working with one or
| more partners?
| kj4ips wrote:
| They have a Ubuntu derivative called DGX OS, that they use on
| their current lines.
| overfeed wrote:
| I wonder which [publicly listed] companies would look at the
| abandonment of Jetson and still commit to having Nvidia set
| the depreciation schedule for them.
| nijave wrote:
| They already do have a pretty robust software stack that goes
| all the way to code/analytics libraries. I'm not sure on the
| current state of things but ~2020 they were automatically
| testing chip designs for performance regressions in analytics
| libraries across the entire stack from hardware to each piece
| of software
| kj4ips wrote:
| It's my opinion that nvidia does good engineering at the
| nanometer scale, but it gets worse the larger it gets. They do a
| worse job at integrating the same aspeed BMC that (almost)
| everyone uses than SuperMicro does, and the version of Aptio they
| tend to ship has almost nothing available in setup. With the
| price of a DGX, I expect far better. (Insert obligatory bezel
| grumble here)
| ecshafer wrote:
| Nvidia already sells servers?
|
| What I don't really get, is that Nvidia is worth like $4.5T on
| $130B revenue. If they want to sell servers, why don't they just
| buy Dell or HP? If they want CPUs want not buy AMD, Qualcomm,
| Broadcom or TI? (I know they got blocked on their ARM attempt
| before the AI boom) Their revenue is too low to support their
| value, shouldn't they use this massive value to just buy up
| companies to up their revenue?
| jack_tripper wrote:
| _> why don't they just buy Dell or HP?_
|
| Why buy a complex but relatively low margin business that comes
| with a lot of baggage they don't need, when they can focus on
| what they do best and let Dell and HP compete against each
| other for Nvidia's benefit?
|
| Same reason why Apple doesn't buy Foxconn or TSMC.
| mr_toad wrote:
| > If they want to sell servers, why don't they just buy Dell or
| HP?
|
| They want to sell HPC servers, not general purpose servers.
| andreasmetsala wrote:
| Sometimes building a new organization is easier than trying to
| improve a legacy one.
| btian wrote:
| But nVidia already sells servers (NVL72), and CPUs (Grace). Why
| buy a bunch of overlapping companies?
|
| And no sane regulator on the planet will allow them to takeover
| AMD, Qualcomm, or Broadcom.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Lucky for them Americans have recently gone insane.
| thefourthchime wrote:
| In a sense, they already do, since they're heavily invested in
| CoreWeave. For those unfamiliar, CoreWeave was a crypto company
| that pivoted to building out data centers.
| zerosizedweasle wrote:
| It's interesting to se the market try to do anything to rally.
| The problem is you guys are rallying on the thought that you've
| scared the Fed into cutting rates, but actually by rallying you
| short circuit it. You ensure they won't cut. And that's how the
| market's lillypad hopping thinking is actually just stupidity.
| You rallied, so now there are no rate cuts so the crash will be
| even more brutal.
| wmf wrote:
| GPU "neoclouds" are a different topic than whose logo is on the
| server.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Why would they chase a lower margin business area? Are they out
| of ideas?
| nijave wrote:
| More vertical integration
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Like IBM?
| wmf wrote:
| Like IBM in the 1960s.
| alecco wrote:
| Guys, please read the article. Yes NVIDIA sells servers already.
| What they mean is they are going to also do other system parts
| that currenlty the partners are doing.
|
| > Starting with the VR200 platform, Nvidia is reportedly
| preparing to take over production of fully built L10 compute
| trays with a pre-installed Vera CPU, Rubin GPUs, and a cooling
| system instead of allowing hyperscalers and ODM partners to build
| their own motherboards and cooling solutions. This would not be
| the first time the company has supplied its partners with a
| partially integrated server sub-assembly: it did so with its
| GB200 platform when it supplied the whole Bianca board with key
| components pre-installed. However, at the time, this could be
| considered as L7 - L8 integration, whereas now the company is
| reportedly considering going all the way to L10, selling the
| whole tray assembly -- including accelerators, CPU, memory, NICs,
| power-delivery hardware, midplane interfaces, and liquid-cooling
| cold plates -- as a pre-built, tested module.
| JCM9 wrote:
| This would basically start to turn cloud providers into CoLo
| facilities that just host these servers.
|
| Makes sense longer term for NVidia to build this but adds to the
| bear case for AWS et al long term on AI infrastructure.
| nijave wrote:
| I talked to someone at Nvidia ~2019 or ~2020 and their plan at
| the time was to completely vertically integrate and sell compute
| as a service via their own managed data centers with their own
| software, drivers, firmware, and hardware so this seems like just
| another incremental step in that direction.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| In 2019 or 2020 that probably seemed reasonable.
|
| Now? You would have to tell me nVidia was also building
| multiple nuclear power plants to get the scale to make sense.
| Kye wrote:
| They're invested in nuclear power. Pairing datacenters with
| small modular reactors is at least on the minds of all the AI
| companies.
| pishpash wrote:
| One day they will build AI out of radioactive source
| material directly and skip the reactor. Maybe.
| noir_lord wrote:
| That's one way to arrive at an IBM Mainframe like model I
| guess.
|
| It'll work until you can buy comparable expansion cards for
| open systems (if history is any guide).
| mrbungie wrote:
| Yep, tech is incredibly circular. Once Nvidia gets there is
| highly probable that "disruptive" competition will apear due
| to mere desire/pressure for more freedom and options (and
| knowing NVDA, also costs).
| cyanydeez wrote:
| AMD is already knocking on the same door. If they had
| focused more on drivers it'd be an equal comparison.
| michaelt wrote:
| Maybe in 2019, but I find it hard to believe nvidia looks at
| google's TPU business model enviously these days.
| skybrian wrote:
| Are TPU's a bad business model?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Customers are increasingly wary of building their business
| on someone else's land because they've seen it happen too
| many times that once you're locked in the price goes up, or
| the company who is now your only viable supplier decides to
| enter your own market.
|
| And at least if anyone can buy the hardware you'll have
| your own or have multiple competing providers you can lease
| it from. If you can only lease it and only from one
| company, who would want to touch that? It's like purposely
| walking into a trap.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| This might be the source of the AI bubble burst, just
| like the 2000 bubble. Eventually someone's gonna raise
| the price to cover a bill and suddenly everyone looks at
| actual revenue and power bills , calculates within 6
| months they'll not get their MBA turnip squeezed bonus
| and walk away
| skybrian wrote:
| Lock-in is a valid concern, but on the other hand, for
| many apps, it seems like this can be fairly easily
| mitigated? If you can swap in a different LLM, I don't
| think it matters if it's running on Google TPU's or
| NVidia?
|
| Meanwhile, at the hardware level, TPU's provide some
| competition for NVidia.
| amelius wrote:
| > vertically integrate
|
| Sounds like they are going the Apple way. How long until we
| have to pay 30% to get our apps in their AI-Store?
| DevKoala wrote:
| We already pay a 100% premium on AWS.
| amelius wrote:
| At least that premium is not directly proportional to our
| revenue.
| diamond559 wrote:
| More like IBM
| modeless wrote:
| They're not stopping at servers. They want to sell datacenters.
| heisenbit wrote:
| Competing with your customers can be a risky strategy for a
| platform provider. If the platform abandons the neutral stance
| its customers will be a lot more open to alternatives.
| m_ke wrote:
| Soon OpenAI will make its own chips and Nvidia its own
| foundational models
| wmf wrote:
| I always wondered why a bunch of different companies make
| identical graphics cards then complain that it's a horrible
| business and Nvidia is screwing them. I wondered even more
| strongly when I saw a dozen flavors of the NVL72 rack. If the
| rack is so complex and difficult to manufacture, why have N
| companies do redundant work?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Designing the board is a different business from designing the
| chip. You're negotiating with the DRAM fabs instead of the
| logic fabs, selling to a thousand retailers instead of a dozen
| integrators, etc. And once you've done all that, you do it more
| than once. ASRock isn't just making Nvidia GPUs, they're making
| AMD and Intel GPUs, motherboards, wireless routers, etc.
|
| It's more efficient to have companies that specialize in making
| all kinds of boards than to make each of the companies making
| chips have to do that too. And it's a competitive market so the
| margins are low and the chip makers have little incentive to
| enter it when they can just have someone else do it for little
| money.
| foruhar wrote:
| This video shows the systems being built and shipped with
| cooling, cabling, etc.
|
| It's pretty mind blowing what this crisis shows from the
| manipulation of atoms and electrons all the way up to these
| clusters. Particularly mind blowing for me who has cable
| management issues with a ten port router.
|
| https://youtu.be/1la6fMl7xNA?si=eWTVHeGThNgFKMVG
| dzonga wrote:
| what's mind blowing about the video you shared was the amount
| of coper cable used.
|
| I thought with fiber we wouldn't need coper cables maybe just
| for electricity distribution but clearly I was wrong.
|
| thanks for sharing
| btown wrote:
| "Nobody gets fired for choosing NVIDIA."
| alberth wrote:
| How does their attempt to acquire ARM (and failed) impact this?
| wmf wrote:
| It doesn't.
| idatum wrote:
| Can anyone comment on wafer-scale systems, multiple equivalent
| chips on an entire wafer?
|
| Seems like where things are heading?
| wmf wrote:
| Only Cerebras is doing wafer-scale. It seems to be working for
| them but no one is copying them. The minimum unit (one wafer)
| costs millions and it's not clear how good their multi-wafer
| scaling is.
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