In response to recent media reports that Amazon Cloud Technology (AWS), the world's largest cloud service company, has suspended the procurement of Nvidia's previous generation Grace Hopper chips and is shifting its focus to the next generation Blackwell chip orders, AWS responded in a latest statement, stating: "The transition from Grace Hopper chips to Blackwell chips only applies to the supercomputer Ceiba project, and AWS will continue to provide other services based on Nvidia Hopper chips."
Cloud service providers, including AWS, are major customers of NVIDIA data center AI chips. As of now, Grace Hopper is still the flagship chip used for training large models of artificial intelligence. Blackwell is the new generation GPU chip released by Nvidia at the GTC conference in March this year, and is expected to be shipped next year.
"It should be clarified that AWS has not stopped any orders from Nvidia." AWS's statement states, "In close cooperation with Nvidia, we have jointly decided to migrate Ceiba from Hopper to Blackwell chips, which will achieve a leap in performance."
Ceiba is a supercomputer jointly built by AWS and Nvidia. In March of this year, there were media reports that Nvidia had abandoned the original design of Ceiba and would adopt a new GPU after releasing the Blackwell chip. According to Nvidia, the new Ceiba system will be built using a total of over 20000 Blackwell GPUs, with a 22% increase in the number of GPUs compared to the original plan.
Nvidia did not comment on AWS's order situation to First Financial reporters.
AI is becoming a driving factor for cloud investment. AWS hopes to deploy the most advanced Nvidia chips in its data centers, thereby occupying a leading position in cloud computing. Although AWS still maintains its largest market share in cloud services, it faces rapid development from competitors.
According to the latest report from research firm Canalys, global cloud infrastructure service expenditures increased by 21% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024, reaching $79.8 billion. The three major cloud service providers - AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud - have a total growth rate of 24%, accounting for 66% of the total market. AWS has maintained a leading market position this quarter with a market share of 31%, but Microsoft has the highest growth rate of 31%, almost twice that of AWS. AWS has a growth rate of 17%, while Google Cloud has a growth rate of 28%.
Canalys analyst Zhang Yi said, "There are significant differences in the strategies of the three major head cloud vendors, which are reflected in their growth rates. Microsoft's end-to-end product portfolio is a strong competitive barrier, while Google's strength in AI has brought it development momentum. AWS recently invested $4 billion in generative AI company Aerospace, and its ongoing AI integration in cloud services shows that it is shifting its business focus towards AI."
Last week, AWS announced the resignation of CEO Adam Selipsky. Canalys analysis suggests that Selipsky's resignation indicates that the company is seeking new vitality to prevent market share loss.
At the same time, AWS is accelerating the development of AI large models. AWS informed First Financial reporters that the company's generative AI assistant Amazon Q was officially available earlier this month. At present, several cloud service giants have successively launched generative AI assistants.
Nvidia is the biggest beneficiary of competition among cloud giants, and the company will release its financial report on May 22nd local time. The market expects the revenue in the financial report to set a record again. In the first five months of this year, Nvidia's stock price has risen by over 90%.