New Nvidia AI chips face issue with overheating servers: Report

Nvidia's new Blackwell AI chips, which have already faced delays, have encountered problems with accompanying servers that overheat, causing some customers to worry they will not have enough time to get new data centres up and running, the Information reported on Sunday.

The Blackwell graphics processing units overheat when connected together in the customised server racks the company has designed, the report said, citing sources familiar with the issue.

The AI chipmaker has asked its suppliers to change the design of the racks several times to resolve overheating problems, according to Nvidia employees who have been working on the issue, as well as customers and suppliers with knowledge of it, the report said without naming the suppliers.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.

Nvidia unveiled Blackwell chips in March and had earlier said they would ship in the second quarter before encountering delays, potentially affecting customers such as Meta Platforms , Alphabet's Google and Microsoft.

Nvidia's Blackwell chip takes two squares of silicon the size of the company's previous offering and binds them into a single component that is 30 times speedier at tasks like providing responses from chatbots.

Published - November 18, 2024 08:16 am IST