Efforts to control further rumors from spreading are in play as NVIDIA says that packaging is to blame for its latest round of GPU shortages. It has been reported by multiple media outlets (some more credible than others) that the GPU manufacturer has been shifting its resources from gaming GPUs to its booming AI offerings. However, even on the AI front customers hoping to get their hands on NVIDIA’s highly sought-after cards are having difficulty. Per Tom’s Hardware Elon Musk, who made news months ago when it was announced he was purchasing 10,000 of them, was quoted as saying the cards are harder to get a hold of than drugs.
Meanwhile, there have been rumors ranging from warehouses full of gaming cards just sitting in storage to the company no longer having much interest in the consumer GPU market and having more-or-less stopped production on its RTX 40-series lineup so it could focus on meeting the AI industry demands. NVIDIA DGX VP and GM Charlie Boyle issued a statement clarifying that packaging (CoWoS) is the true source of the shortages and not a lack of wafers.
“So when people use the word GPU shortage, they’re really talking about a shortage of or a backlog of, some component on the board, not the GPU itself. It’s just limited worldwide manufacturing of these things… but we forecast what people want and what the world can build.”
This news comes as NVIDIA’s stock prices have experienced huge surges, and even greater forecasts, following the exploding demand in the AI industry but that may change if investors lose confidence in the company’s ability to fulfill orders. TSMC has said that it is working at max capacity but hopes to have additional fabs online in 1.5 years to meet demands.
Consumer GPUs
Additionally, there has been speculation regarding what other consumer GPUs NVIDIA may yet still release in its RTX 40 series along with when it will release their successors. It would seem that this packaging issue is contributing to all of the above but in different ways.
Per ComputerBase (via machine translation):
“That’s why Nvidia is currently doing absolutely nothing to have additional wafers exposed with professional chips because more CoWoS packaging capacity is not available. This must necessarily go hand in hand. In this respect, there is no reason, as suggested in the media, to relocate production capacities for gaming chips. Because the gaming chips do not need these additional steps, after all, they are classic packages without much effort that many companies can implement.”
ComputerBase adds that gaming GPUs are more dependent on PC sales, which have been in a decline for some time but are picking up again, and as they increase so will GPU sales.