GTC felt more optimistic than ever, but Nvidia's challenges are accumulating

Nvidia's GTC event draws 25,000; faces U.S. tariffs and AI competition.

: Nvidia's GTC 2025 set a record with 25,000 attendees in San Jose. CEO Jensen Huang unveiled powerful new chips, emphasizing their necessity despite challenges from DeepSeek's efficient AI model and competitors like Cerebras and Google. Nvidia faces tariff pressures, pledging U.S. manufacturing investments. New ventures include a quantum center in Boston and personal AI supercomputers.

Nvidia's GTC 2025 was a massive success, drawing in a record-breaking 25,000 attendees to the San Jose Convention Center. The event was filled with numerous workshops, talks, and panels, often resulting in packed rooms where attendees ended up sitting on the floors or leaning against the wall. This overwhelming attendance indicates strong interest and engagement from the tech community towards Nvidia's projects and future offerings. Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, worked to project confidence amidst significant challenges the company is facing.

Nvidia currently holds a pivotal position in the AI industry, marked by their impressive financial performance and absence of serious competition so far. However, Nvidia is not without its set of challenges, with the looming threats of U.S. tariffs, strong apertures by Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, and a shifting focus from major AI players such as OpenAI and Meta, who are reducing reliance on Nvidia by developing in-house hardware. Nvidia has placed its bets on reasoning models that demand power and showcased its new line of Vera Rubin GPUs at the event.

The keynote by Jensen Huang also hinted at rising issues with competitors like Cerebras and Google. Many hyperscalers, including Google with TPUs and Microsoft with Cobalt 100, are developing custom chips aimed at diminishing Nvidia's undue leadership. Following the keynote address, Nvidia's share prices fell by around 4%, indicative of investor skepticism.

Concerning tariffs, Huang emphasized that while the short-term impacts might be negligible, the long-term economic influence from tariffs cannot be fully avoided. Nvidia's response includes a pledge to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in manufacturing within America, aligning with the Trump Administration's "America First" policies. This move is strategic for diversifying supply chains but comes at the cost of nibbling on the company's profit margins.

Beyond its traditional hard-core chip business, Nvidia is exploring other industries. At GTC, the company introduced new ventures in quantum computing, previously neglected by Nvidia, with the introduction of Quantum Day. The inauguration of a new center, NVAQC in Boston, aims to advance quantum computing technologies, jointly with hardware and software partners. Nvidia also presented DGX Spark and DGX Station, promoting AI supercomputers as futuristic replacements for the ordinary PC. Despite the high price point, Jensen Huang's bold vision attempts to redefine the personal computing landscape.

Sources: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Ars Technica, The Verge, CNBC

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