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I must make a confession before the New Year.
Nine years ago I had never heard of Nvidia before. I am not proud of this seeing as I like to eat, sleep, and breathe investing. The company just wasn’t on my radar screen, what can I say.
It wasn’t until my former boss Jim Cramer began discussing the company’s chip advancements every day inside TheStreet’s HQ that I started digging into the company, in part to hold an intelligent conversation with the Big Guy and write stories for him. Jim was so far out ahead of the Nvidia story, heck of a call.
Since then, Nvidia (NVDA) has truly captured the minds of investors — and corporate execs who are tapping the company to support their AI expansion. Just this year, Nvidia’s market cap exploded past $1 trillion for the first time (it’s now at $1.2 trillion, according to Yahoo Finance data).
Wall Street analysts on average forecast Nvidia’s earnings will grow nearly 70% over the next year (it’s probably going to be much higher). And Nvidia’s trailing 12 month price-to-earnings ratio of 64 is almost triple the S&P 500’s.
It can’t make its H100 AI chips fast enough, and they remain in short supply.
Companies such as CoreWeave are raising debt backed by the Nvidia chips they own (kind of crazy when you think about how fast the tech is moving, risking asset devaluation). Nvidia founder Jensen Huang — who conceived of the business from inside a Denny’s in 1993 — has minted slews of millionaires inside of his company, and is reportedly warning them not to get fat and lazy.
From the outside looking in, everything has seemed to go Nvidia’s way the past decade. I am sure there have been challenges for management and lower-level employees, but the company has continued to put win after win on the board for investors.
I am not here to say Nvidia’s winning ways won’t continue in 2024. The company’s mega wins have propelled it well out in front of rivals in chip development. But what I am saying today is that the competitive gap with two large, hungry rivals is narrowing.
Nvidia bulls would be wise to undertake some competitive analysis on AMD (AMD) and Intel (INTC).
AMD unveiled its most advanced chip targeted at generative AI several weeks ago.
Coined the MI300x, it can use up to 192GB of memory and boasts an astounding 153 billion transistors. AMD CEO Lisa Su played up the chip’s better performance potential relative to “competitors” — a not so thinly veiled reference to Nvidia.
The sizable memory capabilities mean AMD’s new chip could be used to train large language models — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT — commonly known as “LLMs.”
Su told me she has a “line of sight” to $2 billion in sales from this chip alone in 2024.
Meantime, Intel has begun to spring back to life under CEO Pat Gelsinger after a tough 2022 and first half of this year.
A week ago, Intel showcased a range of products and services that all include artificial intelligence. On display was Gaudi3, an artificial intelligence chip for generative AI software. The chip will officially launch next year.
The Street gave the new chips solid marks.
Gelsinger told me he is ramping up production of these new chips like “crazy” (see above video) to be the dominant player in the budding AI PC market.
This three-party AI chip battle will be the one to watch in 2024… perhaps with major implications for the share price performances of the individual companies and broader AI complex. Don’t discount the challengers, Nvidia fans.
Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on Twitter/X @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn. Tips on deals, mergers, activist situations, or anything else? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.
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Source: finance.yahoo.com