Are AI servers in 2024 equivalent to new energy vehicles in 2018?

AI servers are high-performance servers designed specifically to perform computationally intensive tasks such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning. In recent years, due to the rise of artificial intelligence, high computing power has become synonymous with the new era. As the demand for high-computing chips in various industries continues to rise, the estimated compound growth rate of AI server shipments in the future will exceed 10%, and it will become one of the fastest growing intelligent hardware. The average price of AI server products may also move from US$10,000 to US$100,000, and the long-term server market space is bound to exceed US$1 trillion. AI servers are undoubtedly one of the most promising areas in the future.

This scene is very similar to the scene of new energy vehicles entering the public's field of vision in 2018. In fact, in the information and communication track, servers are gradually replacing smartphones to become the C position of the track. Recently, as the most representative companies of smartphones and servers, Apple and Nvidia have repeatedly competed for the throne of the world's largest market value in the context of this era of change. Obviously, servers have leveraged the unshakable position of smartphones in the past.

So, what are the most influential AI server manufacturers in the world? At present, NVIDIA has replaced Intel as the top AI server manufacturer and has begun to compete with AI server manufacturers such as Dell and HPE for market resources. Companies that started out with smartphones, such as Huawei and Samsung, also have a strong influence in the AI ​​server field.

The new king of the industry that keeps soaring -- Nvidia

On June 18, Nvidia (NVDA) closed up 3.51% to $135.58, with a market value of $3.34 trillion, surpassing Microsoft (MSFT) to become the world's most valuable company. As of the close, Microsoft's market value was $3.32 trillion, and Apple (AAPL), which ranked third, had a market value of $3.29 trillion.

source：uSMART SG

NVIDIA is a leader in the field of GPU (graphics processing unit) accelerators. The GPU developed by NVIDIA can provide high-performance parallel computing capabilities in deep learning training and reasoning tasks, and also supports accelerated operations of deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow and PyTorch. In addition, NVIDIA has also developed TensorRT, an SDK (software development kit) for efficient deep learning reasoning, which can optimize and deploy deep learning models, improve reasoning speed and efficiency, and is suitable for real-time reasoning scenarios on the server side.

According to reports, NVIDIA is planning to launch the GB200 flagship artificial intelligence chip design server rack, which has long been the work of server designers such as Dell, HPE and AMD. This move may snatch the market of AI server manufacturers such as Dell.

The new favorite of AI that has regained its spring--Dell

On May 30, Dell announced its financial report for the last quarter, and its performance was not satisfactory, and its stock price plummeted. However, Morgan Stanley analysts are optimistic about the company's long-term prospects and said that the sharp drop in stock prices may be a good opportunity for investment. The reasoDelln is Dell's outstanding performance and steady development in the field of AI servers in recent years.

Dell's stock price has been rising since mid-June. At the close of June 18, the stock price reached $149.15, an increase of 5.01%.

source：uSMART SG

On June 19, Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell posted on social media X that Dell is working with Nvidia to build an AI factory to support the large model Grok of Musk's xAI company.

At the same time, according to management, Dell is currently involved in almost all AI infrastructure construction opportunities for secondary CSPs and sovereign countries, most of which involve the construction of large accelerated computing training clusters. As for the construction of cloud service facilities (Cloud Service Providers, CSPs for short), demand remains very strong and is likely to accelerate in 2025.

Humble and stable leading company--HPE Technology

HPE Technology's predecessor was HP's enterprise product department. It was split from HP in November 2015. Its main product lines include computing servers, storage arrays, network equipment and high-performance computing businesses.

On June 6, HPE Technology announced its second-quarter financial report. The company's second-quarter revenue increased by 3.3% to US$7.2 billion. The consensus expectation is a year-on-year decrease of 2% to US$6.82 billion. Earnings per share last quarter also reached 42 cents, exceeding the consensus expectation of 39 cents.

The part that exceeded expectations mainly came from HPE's server business, which generated $3.87 billion in revenue last quarter, exceeding analysts' expectations of $3.45 billion. The company said that sales of systems for artificial intelligence doubled from the first quarter to more than $900 million. In an interview, HPE's CEO said that increased customer demand and a stable supply of high-performance semiconductors have led to increased sales of artificial intelligence systems. Compared with other well-known AI server manufacturers, HPE's recent stock price seems relatively flat. The company's current stock price is $21.84 and its total market value is $28.392 billion.

source：uSMART SG

The world's largest memory chip manufacturer--Samsung

Samsung is highly competitive in the field of AI servers. In March 2024, Samsung Electronics said it would supply its next-generation Mach-1 AI chip to Naver by the end of this year. The deal is worth up to 1 trillion won and will have huge impacts, involving other technology giants including Microsoft. Mach-1 is an AI accelerator in the form of a system-on-chip (SoC) that reduces the bottleneck between graphics processing units (GPUs) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, and the price is one-tenth of Nvidia chips, with the dual advantages of high efficiency and low cost.

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