- Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company's latest AI chips will start shipping next quarter.
- The Blackwell chip is twice as fast as Nvidia's current Hopper chip.
- Huang made the announcement during an earnings conference call on Wednesday.
A new era of computing for Nvidia is already well underway.
During a packed earnings call on Wednesday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced an accelerated rollout schedule for the company's newest AI chip, Blackwell, which is twice as fast and boasts five times the AI performance of the company's current chip.
Huang announced Blackwell's chip in March, but said this week that the company has been working on producing it for some time already.
During a question-and-answer session on the company's quarterly conference call, Huang said Blackwell's production shipments will begin in the second quarter and ramp up in the third quarter. Customers are on track to have their data centers up and running by the fourth quarter, Huang said.
“Blackwell's revenue will increase significantly this year,” Huang said on a conference call.
The company's momentum doesn't seem to be slowing anytime soon: Its shares soared to an all-time high on Wednesday afternoon after it released its first-quarter earnings report, in which the chipmaker reported a 262% increase in sales compared to the same period last year.
“We are poised for the next wave of growth,” Huang said, citing Blackwell's platform.
But despite Huang's bullish outlook for Blackwell, excitement for this next-generation chip doesn't seem to be killing demand for Nvidia's current hardware.
“We see increased demand for hoppers throughout the quarter,” Huang said, adding that he expects demand to exceed supply “for some time” as Nvidia transitions to Blackwell.
Blackwell's system is designed to be “backward compatible” with Hopper, allowing for an easy transition, Huang said Wednesday.
The next-generation graphics processors will cost between $30,000 and $40,000 each, Huang said in March.
But while Nvidia is gunning for unparalleled success, challenges lie ahead as competitors work aggressively to develop rival chips, Business Insider reported ahead of Wednesday's conference call.
