Will AI server prices increase by 20%? Server manufacturers say Nvidia chip shortage, how long will it last?

NVIDIA Visual China Data Map

As ChatGPT triggers a new wave of artificial intelligence (AI), technology companies have entered the large model track one after another, and the demand for computing power in reasoning and training has increased significantly. Many institutions predict that the AI ​​server market will continue to grow, with 2022 to The compound growth rate in 2026 will reach 10.8%.

At the same time, the price of AI servers is also rising. As early as April, investors asked on the investor question and answer platform of Inspur Information (000977), the leader in domestic servers, whether it was true that the average price of AI server shipments increased by 20%.

On May 18, relevant people from Zhongke Sugon told The Paper that the price of AI servers is higher than in the early days, but the other party did not disclose the specific price increase services. According to a relevant person from another domestic server manufacturer, except for Nvidia’s AI servers, other servers have not increased their prices.

On May 18, the share prices of computing power server manufacturers rose. Sugon (603019) rose 6.41%, Inspur Information (000977) rose 1.43%, Unisplendour (000938) rose 1.08%, and China Great Wall (000066) rose 0.22%.

It is understood that the AI ​​server is a server specially designed to support artificial intelligence applications. It is usually equipped with high-performance processors, GPUs and other hardware accelerators, which can provide efficient computing power and data processing capabilities, and can be applied to intelligent analysis of medical images, Face recognition, voice recognition, fingerprint recognition, security monitoring, financial services and other scenarios.

From the perspective of the global market, the "Global Artificial Intelligence Market Semi-Annual Tracking Report" released by the international data company IDC in August last year shows that in the first half of 2021, Inspur Information maintained the global artificial intelligence server market share of 20.2%. The market ranks first, followed by Dell and HP with 14% and 10% respectively.

According to Pacific Securities, the domestic AI server market in 2022 will show a concentration trend with the top eight manufacturers accounting for 92%. Among them, Inspur occupies 37% of the market share, ranking first, followed by KunQian, Nettrix, Enginetech, and H3C with 11%, 10%, 9%, and 8% respectively.

Source: Pacific Securities Research Report

In addition, the proportion of AI server shipments in all servers is gradually increasing. According to TrendForce estimates, as of 2022, the annual shipment volume of AI servers equipped with GPUs will be approximately 140,000 units, accounting for less than 1% of the total servers. Annual shipments of global AI servers are expected to grow by 8% in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.8% from 2022 to 2026.

The reason for the price increase of AI servers, relevant sources from the above-mentioned server manufacturers revealed, "It is mainly due to the shortage of NVIDIA chips. The most important core of AI servers is the chip."

According to a research report by China International Finance Securities, GPU is an important source of computing power to support AI training, accounting for more than 80% of the value in training servers. Currently, NVIDIA is the dominant player in the GPU market, with a global independent graphics card market share of up to 80%. Its high-end GPUs such as H100, A100 and V100 occupy the vast majority of the AI ​​​​method training market.

However, due to production capacity, Nvidia's chips are often in short supply, which has a direct impact on the server industry.

Take the first quarter financial report of Inspur Information as an example. During the period, the company's revenue was 9.4 billion yuan, a decrease of 45.59% from the same period last year, and its net profit was 210 million yuan, a decrease of 37% from the same period last year. The company explained that this was mainly due to The rhythm of customer demand has changed compared with the same period last year, which is due to the decrease in shipment demand in this period.

In this regard, someone asked on the investor platform about "changes in the pace of customer procurement". Inspur Information explained that the business situation is mainly affected by market demand. In the first quarter, the prosperity of some customers' industries has not yet fully recovered. Customers' Delivery demand decreased compared with the same period last year.

NVIDIA has always been an important supplier of Inspur Information. In 2019, Intel and Nvidia were its first and second largest suppliers, accounting for 37.53% and 7.8% respectively. Starting from 2020, Inspur information will no longer disclose the names of suppliers in detail, and will refer to them as "Supplier 1" and "Supplier". "Business 2" is the reference.

Comparing the financial reports of previous years, we can see that the procurement proportion of Inspur Information continues to decrease. In 2020, the proportions of the top two suppliers were 24.12% and 17.27% respectively. In 2021, the proportions of the top two suppliers were 23.83% and 17.27% respectively. 11.07%, 14.17%, 10.54% in 2022.

Source: Inspur Information 2022 Financial Report

Many companies are currently trying to develop their own AI chips. In early May, it was revealed that Microsoft was providing financial support to help AMD develop AI chips, and was cooperating with AMD to develop a self-developed AI chip code-named Athena.

Microsoft’s rival in cloud computing, Amazon, acquired Annapurna Labs in 2016 and developed two different AI chips; Google parent company Alphabet is also training its own chips.

Large models have huge requirements on computing power. Thousands of Nvidia's AI chips are necessary for the operation of ChatGPT, which Microsoft has previously revealed. UBS analysts previously mentioned that in terms of computing power, ChatGPT has introduced at least 10,000 NVIDIA high-end GPUs. ChatGPT-like applications from Internet giants Alibaba, Baidu and other companies are expected to generate a large demand for high-computing GPUs in the future.

Institutions predict that the demand for GPUs will rise significantly in the future. According to data from Verified Market Research, the global GPU market size will be 33.5 billion yuan in 2021, and the global GPU market size is expected to reach 477.4 billion yuan in 2028.

The above is the detailed content of Will AI server prices increase by 20%? Server manufacturers say Nvidia chip shortage, how long will it last?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!