Nvidia
Nvidia is one of the world’s biggest computer chip companies, best known for its line of graphics processing units or GPUs. Although the firm had its start in the world of consumer gaming, in recent years it’s grown into a true tech titan with diverse investments in self-driving cars, cloud computing, supercomputing, and artificial intelligence. The parallel processing power of Nvidia’s GPUs has proven to be particularly good at machine learning tasks, and its chips are in high demand not only from AI researchers but any business with an interest in artificial intelligence. From 2015 onwards, Nvidia’s share price grew sharply, allowing the company to make some key acquisitions, including UK chip designer ARM, which it announced it would purchase in September 2020 for $40 billion. Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, who is currently the firm’s CEO. Known for his leather jackets and upbeat corporate presentations, Huang is a familiar figure to anyone interested in tech.
Dominic Preston
Samsung’s AI chip anguish.
Samsung’s estimated Q4 earnings are way down on both Q3 and analyst estimates. Part of the problem? It can’t develop new AI memory chips for Nvidia fast enough, but Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has faith:
“They have to engineer a new design ... But they can do it. They are working very fast. They’re very committed to do it.”
Thomas Ricker
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang is still waiting for his Mar-a-Lago invite.
“I would be delighted to go see him and congratulate him and do everything we can to help this administration succeed,” Huang told Bloomberg.
Maybe the president-elect is waiting for his seven-figure donation, per Tim Cook, Sam Altman, Zuck, and Bezos — a bargain compared to the $259 million contributed by Musk.
Jay Peters
Want an RTX 5090 for your small form factor PC?
It will have to be Nvidia’s Founder’s Edition model, according to an update to Nvidia’s small form factor PC compatibility list spotted by VideoCardz.
Emma Roth
Nvidia’s China-only RTX 5090D slashes AI performance.
The China-only chip comes with 2,375 AI TOPS, compared to the 3,352 on the RTX 5090 that will launch elsewhere, as pointed out by Tom’s Hardware. US export rules prevent chipmakers like Nvidia from selling high-powered chips to China.
Despite these requirements, it seems some of the company’s advanced chips have made their way into China through smuggling, according to The Information.
Richard Lawler
An AI supercomputer you can carry around.
This is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s introduction of Project Digits, a GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip-powered system with 128GB of RAM that costs about $3,000 and can run sophisticated AI models in a package small enough to sit on your desk.
Sean Hollister
I still can’t get over the fact that Nvidia fit the 5090 into a two-slot graphics card.
As a journalist, I don’t cheer or clap from my seat at keynotes, and I’m skeptical that each of Nvidia’s four new cards can truly feel twice as fast as the previous gen. But when this happened, my heart went out to all my fellow Small Form Factor (SFF) enthusiasts. Hope we see more two-slots in future!
Tom Warren
Digital Foundry got a first look at DLSS 4 on an RTX 5080.
The new DLSS 4 tech from Nvidia looks like it will reduce ghosting and smearing in games like Cyberpunk 2077. Digital Foundry found that DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation has smoother frame times, despite two additional frames being added compared to existing Frame Generation. Latency might still be an issue, as there’s around an additional 6ms for the Multi Frame Generation on the RTX 5080.
Tom Warren and Richard Lawler
Jay Peters
Nvidia’s G-Assist AI assistant is launching in February.
The G-Assist System Assistant, initially revealed in June 2024, can help users “control a broad range of PC settings, from optimizing game and system settings, charting frame rates and other key performance statistics, to controlling select peripherals settings such as lighting — all via basic voice or text commands,” according to a blog post.
Sean Hollister
Nvidia’s CES keynote isn’t in a ballroom, it’s in a stadium. And that stadium is PACKED.
The venue normally fits 12,000 people, but Nvidia says it’s cramming in as many 14,000 by filling the center of the arena, too — where myself, fellow press, and analysts are seated. The screen is massive. You can watch the keynote here or on YouTube starting at 6:40PM PT — it’s running a little late.
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Sean Hollister
After an hour and twenty minutes in the Nvidia CES keynote line, I’ve nearly reached the venue.
It’s not the longest line I’ve ever seen, but it is glacial; crowds already stretched through the casino halls 2.5 hours before the keynote. Metal detectors are coming up. A sea of people behind and in front. Interest in Nvidia and its stock price are at record highs right now.
Photo by Sean Hollister/The Verge
Todd Haselton
Nvidia closed at a record high ahead of CEO Jensen Huang’s CES keynote.
Shares were up 3.43 percent to $149.43, besting a previous closing high of $148.88 set in November. At Huang’s keynote tonight, the company is expected to announce its latest consumer graphics cards. Nvidia’s rocketing value, however, has been driven by AI chip demand. Nvidia’s 52-week intraday high is $152.89.
Jay Peters
Richard Lawler
HP Omen Max leak shows off another Nvidia 50-series laptop.
If there were any doubt we’d see a new generation of Nvidia graphics hardware at its CES 2025 LAN party, that’s evaporated.
The latest hint comes from @MysteryLupin on X, who’s had early leaks before, with these pictures showing a 16-inch HP Omen Max and specs including an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU.
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Verge Score
The AMD Strix Point CPU in the Zephyrus G16 gives this gaming laptop a battery life boost over the Intel version.
Jonathan Hilburg
Jay Peters
Nvidia’s new app can slow games down.
The new Nvidia App “reduces performance by up to 15% in some games,” according to Tom’s Hardware. Nvidia acknowledged that there is a reported problem and suggested a fix:
We are aware of a reported performance issue related to Game Filters and are actively looking into it. You can turn off Game Filters from the NVIDIA App Settings > Features > Overlay > Game Filters and Photo Mode, and then relaunch your game.
Tom’s Hardware says the fix “does indeed work.”
Andrew Webster
Tom Warren
Nvidia’s latest drivers are the first to include its new app.
Nvidia has just released its latest driver (566.36) and it’s the first to include the optional Nvidia app instead of the GeForce Experience. It also includes Game Ready support for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and a fix for Forza Horizon 5 and God of War Ragnarök crashes. You can download it over at Nvidia’s website.
GeForce Driver 566.36
[NVIDIA]
Thomas Ricker
Inside Amazon’s plan to compete with Nvidia’s AI chips.
Bloomberg explores Amazon’s $8 billion partnership with Anthropic that could advance Amazon’s Trainium hardware and software tools enough for the AWS provider to cut into Nvidia’s stranglehold on the $100-billion-plus market for AI chips:
Trainium2 is the company’s third generation of artificial intelligence chip. By industry reckoning, this is a make-or-break moment. Either the third attempt sells in sufficient volume to make the investment worthwhile, or it flops and the company finds a new path.
Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Nvidia just made nearly $20 billion in pure profit in a single quarter.
$14.8 billion profit in Q1, $16.6 billion in Q2, and now $19.3 billion in Q3 of fiscal 2025 — that’s profit, not earnings. (Earnings were $35.08 billion, up from $30.04 billion last quarter.)
The vast majority is from AI data center, of course — but gaming did have a 14 percent bump. It’s a $3B-a-quarter business, while data center is a $30B one.
Sean Hollister
GeForce Now Founders won’t be subject to Nvidia’s upcoming 100-hour-a-month data cap.
From Nvidia’s FAQ:
No, Founders memberships will still have unlimited playtime hours for life, as long as there is no lapse in their membership.
Also:
Founders can upgrade to Ultimate and return to their prior Founders benefits at any time without penalty, as long as there is no lapse in their payments.
