Meta Platforms Inc CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that the company will be making a significant investment in NVIDIA Corp AI chips. In an Instagram Reels post, Zuckerberg stated that Meta is allocating billions of dollars to NVIDIA’s AI chips as part of its AI-focused roadmap. This investment will involve the purchase of 350,000 H100 graphics cards from NVIDIA by the end of 2024.
The H100, which was released in late 2022, is estimated to be priced between $25,000 and $30,000. Analysts at Raymond James suggest that Meta’s expenditure on these chips could be close to $9 billion. In addition to the H100 graphics cards, Meta’s compute infrastructure will also include “almost 600k H100 equivalents of compute if you include other GPUs,” according to Zuckerberg.
The investment in NVIDIA’s AI chips is crucial for Meta as the company focuses on artificial general intelligence (AGI) research. Zuckerberg described AGI research as a “long-term vision” for the company. Meta’s Chief Scientist, Yann LeCun, highlighted the significance of GPUs in AGI research during a recent event in San Francisco, stating, “There is an AI war, and he’s supplying the weapons,” referring to NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.
Meta’s total expenses for 2024 are projected to be between $94 billion and $99 billion, partly due to its computing expansion. This announcement comes after Meta, Microsoft Corp, and OpenAI opted for AMD’s Instinct MI300X AI chip in December, which was seen as a potential challenge to NVIDIA’s dominance in the AI chip market. However, NVIDIA remains a key player in the industry, with its recent shift to designing lower-powered AI chips in response to U.S. regulations and its role in generative AI advancements.
Investors and industry enthusiasts are closely monitoring NVIDIA’s standing in the semiconductors & semiconductor equipment industry, evaluating critical financial metrics, market position, and growth potential to gain a deeper understanding of the company’s performance.
Overall, Meta’s massive investment in NVIDIA’s AI chips highlights the company’s commitment to AGI research and its recognition of the importance of advanced computing infrastructure in achieving its long-term goals.
