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Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by alecco on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:35AM (#45927815)
Guys, please read the article. Yes NVIDIA sells servers already. What they mean is they are going to also do other system parts that currenlty the partners are doing.

> Starting with the VR200 platform, Nvidia is reportedly preparing to take over production of fully built L10 compute trays with a pre-installed Vera CPU, Rubin GPUs, and a cooling system instead of allowing hyperscalers and ODM partners to build their own motherboards and cooling solutions. This would not be the first time the company has supplied its partners with a partially integrated server sub-assembly: it did so with its GB200 platform when it supplied the whole Bianca board with key components pre-installed. However, at the time, this could be considered as L7 – L8 integration, whereas now the company is reportedly considering going all the way to L10, selling the whole tray assembly — including accelerators, CPU, memory, NICs, power-delivery hardware, midplane interfaces, and liquid-cooling cold plates — as a pre-built, tested module.

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by nijave on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:40AM (#45927873)
I talked to someone at Nvidia ~2019 or ~2020 and their plan at the time was to completely vertically integrate and sell compute as a service via their own managed data centers with their own software, drivers, firmware, and hardware so this seems like just another incremental step in that direction.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by michaelt on Friday November 14, 2025 @12:05PM (#45928888)
Maybe in 2019, but I find it hard to believe nvidia looks at google’s TPU business model enviously these days.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by skybrian on Friday November 14, 2025 @12:35PM (#45929246)
Are TPU’s a bad business model?
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by AnthonyMouse on Friday November 14, 2025 @01:03PM (#45929659)
Customers are increasingly wary of building their business on someone else's land because they've seen it happen too many times that once you're locked in the price goes up, or the company who is now your only viable supplier decides to enter your own market.

And at least if anyone can buy the hardware you'll have your own or have multiple competing providers you can lease it from. If you can only lease it and only from one company, who would want to touch that? It's like purposely walking into a trap.

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by cyanydeez on Friday November 14, 2025 @04:04PM (#45932174)
This might be the source of the AI bubble burst, just like the 2000 bubble. Eventually someone's gonna raise the price to cover a bill and suddenly everyone looks at actual revenue and power bills , calculates within 6 months they'll not get their MBA turnip squeezed bonus and walk away
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by skybrian on Friday November 14, 2025 @05:25PM (#45932896)
Lock-in is a valid concern, but on the other hand, for many apps, it seems like this can be fairly easily mitigated? If you can swap in a different LLM, I don't think it matters if it's running on Google TPU's or NVidia?

Meanwhile, at the hardware level, TPU's provide some competition for NVidia.

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by AnthonyMouse on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:20PM (#45934775)
But then what's the case for making them Google-exclusive instead of selling the hardware to anyone who wants to buy one?
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by noir_lord on Friday November 14, 2025 @11:12AM (#45928263)
That's one way to arrive at an IBM Mainframe like model I guess.

It'll work until you can buy comparable expansion cards for open systems (if history is any guide).

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by mrbungie on Friday November 14, 2025 @11:24AM (#45928399)
Yep, tech is incredibly circular. Once Nvidia gets there is highly probable that "disruptive" competition will apear due to mere desire/pressure for more freedom and options (and knowing NVDA, also costs).
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by cyanydeez on Friday November 14, 2025 @04:05PM (#45932186)
AMD is already knocking on the same door. If they had focused more on drivers it'd be an equal comparison.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by SV_BubbleTime on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:48AM (#45927966)
In 2019 or 2020 that probably seemed reasonable.

Now? You would have to tell me nVidia was also building multiple nuclear power plants to get the scale to make sense.

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by Kye on Friday November 14, 2025 @11:11AM (#45928247)
They're invested in nuclear power. Pairing datacenters with small modular reactors is at least on the minds of all the AI companies.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by pishpash on Friday November 14, 2025 @12:35PM (#45929242)
One day they will build AI out of radioactive source material directly and skip the reactor. Maybe.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by amelius on Friday November 14, 2025 @01:41PM (#45930265)
> vertically integrate

Sounds like they are going the Apple way. How long until we have to pay 30% to get our apps in their AI-Store?

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by DevKoala on Friday November 14, 2025 @01:45PM (#45930322)
We already pay a 100% premium on AWS.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by amelius on Friday November 14, 2025 @01:52PM (#45930417)
At least that premium is not directly proportional to our revenue.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by DevKoala on Monday November 17, 2025 @01:58PM (#45956744)
Good callout. However, nothing says Nvidia would adopt this margin tactic either.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by diamond559 on Friday November 14, 2025 @03:21PM (#45931717)
More like IBM
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by ecshafer on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:29AM (#45927736)
Nvidia already sells servers?

What I don't really get, is that Nvidia is worth like $4.5T on $130B revenue. If they want to sell servers, why don't they just buy Dell or HP? If they want CPUs want not buy AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom or TI? (I know they got blocked on their ARM attempt before the AI boom) Their revenue is too low to support their value, shouldn't they use this massive value to just buy up companies to up their revenue?

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by jack_tripper on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:36AM (#45927833)
>why don't they just buy Dell or HP?

Why buy a complex but relatively low margin business that comes with a lot of baggage they don't need, when they can focus on what they do best and let Dell and HP compete against each other for Nvidia's benefit?

Same reason why Apple doesn't buy Foxconn or TSMC.

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by mr_toad on Friday November 14, 2025 @01:37PM (#45930192)
> If they want to sell servers, why don't they just buy Dell or HP?

They want to sell HPC servers, not general purpose servers.

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by andreasmetsala on Friday November 14, 2025 @02:14PM (#45930767)
Sometimes building a new organization is easier than trying to improve a legacy one.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by btian on Friday November 14, 2025 @02:51PM (#45931347)
But nVidia already sells servers (NVL72), and CPUs (Grace). Why buy a bunch of overlapping companies?

And no sane regulator on the planet will allow them to takeover AMD, Qualcomm, or Broadcom.

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by cyanydeez on Friday November 14, 2025 @04:06PM (#45932198)
Lucky for them Americans have recently gone insane.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by disqard on Friday November 14, 2025 @07:08PM (#45933706)
A $1m dinner at Mar-a-Lago will take care of that.

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/nx-s1-5356480/nvidia-china-ai...

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by kj4ips on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:53AM (#45927301)
It's my opinion that nvidia does good engineering at the nanometer scale, but it gets worse the larger it gets. They do a worse job at integrating the same aspeed BMC that (almost) everyone uses than SuperMicro does, and the version of Aptio they tend to ship has almost nothing available in setup. With the price of a DGX, I expect far better. (Insert obligatory bezel grumble here)
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by hvenev on Friday November 14, 2025 @08:59AM (#45926740)
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by p4ul on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:04AM (#45926777)
I had the same reaction. Haven't they been selling DGX boxes for almost 10 years now? And they've been selling the rack-scale NVL72 beast for probably a few years.[1]

What is changing?

[1] https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/gb200-nvl72/

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by reactordev on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:38AM (#45927110)
Cutting out the Vendor like SuperMicro or HPE, they are going straight to consumer now.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by AlanYx on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:22AM (#45926919)
When nVIDIA sells DGX directly they usually still partner with SuperMicro, etc. for deployment and support. It sounds like they're going to be offering those services in-house now, competing with their resellers on that front.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by rlupi on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:26AM (#45927705)
Hyperscalers and similar clients don't use DGX, but their own designs that integrate better with their custom designed datacenters

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/products/mgx/

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by thefourthchime on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:29AM (#45927745)
In a sense, they already do, since they're heavily invested in CoreWeave. For those unfamiliar, CoreWeave was a crypto company that pivoted to building out data centers.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by zerosizedweasle on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:39AM (#45927856)
It's interesting to se the market try to do anything to rally. The problem is you guys are rallying on the thought that you've scared the Fed into cutting rates, but actually by rallying you short circuit it. You ensure they won't cut. And that's how the market's lillypad hopping thinking is actually just stupidity. You rallied, so now there are no rate cuts so the crash will be even more brutal.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by wmf on Friday November 14, 2025 @12:30PM (#45929191)
GPU "neoclouds" are a different topic than whose logo is on the server.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by heisenbit on Friday November 14, 2025 @11:22AM (#45928373)
Competing with your customers can be a risky strategy for a platform provider. If the platform abandons the neutral stance its customers will be a lot more open to alternatives.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by JCM9 on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:39AM (#45927861)
This would basically start to turn cloud providers into CoLo facilities that just host these servers.

Makes sense longer term for NVidia to build this but adds to the bear case for AWS et al long term on AI infrastructure.

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by m_ke on Friday November 14, 2025 @11:23AM (#45928388)
Soon OpenAI will make its own chips and Nvidia its own foundational models
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by jpecar on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:19AM (#45926899)
Servers? I thought they left even racks behind, they're now selling these "AI factories".
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by modeless on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:56AM (#45928073)
They're not stopping at servers. They want to sell datacenters.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by thesuperbigfrog on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:53AM (#45927294)
What software will those Nvidia servers run?

Are they creating their own software stack or working with one or more partners?

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by kj4ips on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:54AM (#45927322)
They have a Ubuntu derivative called DGX OS, that they use on their current lines.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by overfeed on Friday November 14, 2025 @03:38PM (#45931899)
I wonder which [publicly listed] companies would look at the abandonment of Jetson and still commit to having Nvidia set the depreciation schedule for them.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by nijave on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:43AM (#45927908)
They already do have a pretty robust software stack that goes all the way to code/analytics libraries. I'm not sure on the current state of things but ~2020 they were automatically testing chip designs for performance regressions in analytics libraries across the entire stack from hardware to each piece of software
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by dmboyd on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:08AM (#45926799)
Aren’t they already supply constrained? Seems like this would be counterproductive in further limiting supply vs a strategy of commoditizing your complements. This seems closer to PR designed to boost share price rather than a cogent strategy.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by mikeryan on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:48AM (#45927232)
Huh. I view it the other way. If you’re supply constrained go straight to the consumer and capture the value that the middlemen building on top of your tech are currently profiting from.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by energy123 on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:07AM (#45927480)

  > Further limiting supply
Even if they don't increase their GPU production capacity, that's not "limiting" supply. It's keeping it the same. Only now they can sell each unit for a larger profit margin.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by MattRix on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:33AM (#45927052)
They’re only supply constrained on the chips themselves. Selling fully integrated racks allows them to get even more money per chip.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by dboreham on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:35AM (#45927072)
In MBA-speak this is "capturing more of the value chain".
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by czbond on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:40AM (#45927145)
Didn't they watch Silicon Valley to learn that lesson? Don't sell the box.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by re-thc on Friday November 14, 2025 @08:59AM (#45926737)
Soon Nvidia will sell AI itself instead of servers.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by Cthulhu_ on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:19AM (#45926896)
To a point / by some definitions of the phrase AI they already do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Learning_Super_Sampling

I wouldn't be surprised if we see some major acquisitions or mergers happening in the next few years by one of the independent AI vendors like OpenAI and Nvidia.

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by michaelbuckbee on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:08AM (#45926795)
Considering they have a pure service in selling Geforce Now (game streaming), that doesn't seem in any way far fetched.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by Palomides on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:31AM (#45927024)
why? selling GPUs is way more profitable
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by giuliomagnifico on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:44AM (#45927196)
Sell a whole infrastructure is more profitable than sell components, and also put the customers in “sandboxes” with you.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by reactordev on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:39AM (#45927117)
Why sell when you can rent?
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by re-thc on Friday November 14, 2025 @12:19PM (#45929059)
That's what Coreweave etc does and Nvidia already invests in them (i.e. has a stake).
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by Palomides on Friday November 14, 2025 @12:17PM (#45929025)
so you don't get stuck with many billions of dollars in useless GPUs and data centers when the bubble pops
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by 2OEH8eoCRo0 on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:34AM (#45927807)
Why would they chase a lower margin business area? Are they out of ideas?
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by nijave on Friday November 14, 2025 @10:40AM (#45927881)
More vertical integration
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by 2OEH8eoCRo0 on Friday November 14, 2025 @12:26PM (#45929148)
Like IBM?
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by wmf on Friday November 14, 2025 @03:29PM (#45931813)
Like IBM in the 1960s.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by lvl155 on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:01AM (#45926754)
We’re not far from Nvidia exclusively bundling ChatGPT. It’s a classic playbook from Microsoft.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by gruturo on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:52AM (#45927291)
ChatGPT doesn't really have much of a moat. If it becomes Microsoft or Nvidia exclusive, it just opens an opportunity for its competitors. I barely notice which LLM I'm using unless it's something super specific where one is known to be stronger.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by mcintyre1994 on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:45AM (#45927206)
I'm pretty sure they'd like to keep selling chips to all of OpenAI's competitors too.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by ptero on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:08AM (#45926796)
Chatgpt is not the only game in town. Any exclusivity deal will likely backfire against chatgpt.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by MangoToupe on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:07AM (#45926789)
Why would Nvidia ever agree to that?
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by wmf on Friday November 14, 2025 @12:34PM (#45929237)
I always wondered why a bunch of different companies make identical graphics cards then complain that it's a horrible business and Nvidia is screwing them. I wondered even more strongly when I saw a dozen flavors of the NVL72 rack. If the rack is so complex and difficult to manufacture, why have N companies do redundant work?
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by AnthonyMouse on Friday November 14, 2025 @01:16PM (#45929858)
Designing the board is a different business from designing the chip. You're negotiating with the DRAM fabs instead of the logic fabs, selling to a thousand retailers instead of a dozen integrators, etc. And once you've done all that, you do it more than once. ASRock isn't just making Nvidia GPUs, they're making AMD and Intel GPUs, motherboards, wireless routers, etc.

It's more efficient to have companies that specialize in making all kinds of boards than to make each of the companies making chips have to do that too. And it's a competitive market so the margins are low and the chip makers have little incentive to enter it when they can just have someone else do it for little money.

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by foruhar on Friday November 14, 2025 @12:42PM (#45929338)
This video shows the systems being built and shipped with cooling, cabling, etc.

It’s pretty mind blowing what this crisis shows from the manipulation of atoms and electrons all the way up to these clusters. Particularly mind blowing for me who has cable management issues with a ten port router.

https://youtu.be/1la6fMl7xNA?si=eWTVHeGThNgFKMVG

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by dzonga on Friday November 14, 2025 @12:54PM (#45929514)
what's mind blowing about the video you shared was the amount of coper cable used.

I thought with fiber we wouldn't need coper cables maybe just for electricity distribution but clearly I was wrong.

thanks for sharing

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by btown on Friday November 14, 2025 @01:56PM (#45930477)
“Nobody gets fired for choosing NVIDIA.”
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by alberth on Friday November 14, 2025 @03:05PM (#45931543)
How does their attempt to acquire ARM (and failed) impact this?
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by wmf on Friday November 14, 2025 @03:24PM (#45931752)
It doesn't.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by idatum on Friday November 14, 2025 @03:16PM (#45931659)
Can anyone comment on wafer-scale systems, multiple equivalent chips on an entire wafer?

Seems like where things are heading?

Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by wmf on Friday November 14, 2025 @03:23PM (#45931744)
Only Cerebras is doing wafer-scale. It seems to be working for them but no one is copying them. The minimum unit (one wafer) costs millions and it's not clear how good their multi-wafer scaling is.
Re:Nvidia is gearing up to sell servers instead of just GPUs... by matthews3 on Saturday November 15, 2025 @01:15PM (#45939358)
A 300mm wafer on a recent process node (TSMC N3) is estimated to be around $20k at quantity[1]. I don't know what kind of testing and crazy packaging processes would cost for a wafer-scale chip, but I can't imagine it would put the price anywhere near the millions.

[1]: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmcs-wafer-prici...