Description
It's been a wild few years for the microchip industry, recovering from a long-term supply shortage only to find itself at the center of a US-China battle to control the supply lines of this valuable technology. But an industry long associated with volatility is quietly excited that artificial intelligence (AI) could hold the key to long-term stability. US company Nvidia dominates the market for specialized chips known as GPUs, which are ideal for training AI programs like the hugely popular chatbot ChatGPT.
"Technology trends are moving in the direction of Nvidia," company vice president Ronnie Vasishta told AFP this week at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. (READ ALSO: Mobile World Congress 2023: Chinese Huawei dominates event despite US sanctions)
This helped make Nvidia the largest company in the industry, and one of the largest companies of any kind in the United States, with a valuation of $580 billion.
Traditional rivals like Intel and Qualcomm are now on the move, desperate to make sure they don't miss out.
Tiny components, also known as semiconductors, are essential in everything from smartphones, PCs, and electric cars to sophisticated weapons, robotics, and all other high-tech machinery.
AI already looms large in all of these areas, and the advent of chatbots is only pushing it further into the public imagination.
Even in an industry where engineers speak quietly, the enthusiasm is palpable.
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'Scratch the surface'
"The most exciting thing right now is AI," Cristiano Amon, the head of rival company Qualcomm, said at a Wall Street Journal event at MWC.
He wants the world's phones to have chips that can handle even the most complicated AI-related tasks, in large part because Qualcomm is the leader in phone chips.
Vasishta is equally enthusiastic.
"Where and how is AI being used? It will probably be easier to answer where it is not being used," he said.
Another chip company, Britain's Arm, is even further down the production chain than Nvidia: it supplies the designs used by chip vendors.
The company's Chris Bergey told AFP that AI has enormous potential.
The kind of chips Nvidia produces are ideal for training AI models in data centers, he said, but smartphones need chips that can act on those models.
"It's a great opportunity and it's ubiquitous," he said.
He likens the AI revolution to the app boom, which emerged about 15 years ago and rapidly changed the way we use technology.
"Certainly AI is something that has a lot of interesting applications and we don't know where we're going to go yet."
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'Very cool'
However, with chips, nothing is simple.
The supply chain is fiendishly complex: Consulting firm Accenture estimates that a chip crosses borders 70 times before ending up in a phone, camera or car.
Countries like China and the United States would prefer to have more control.
And there's an added problem: The factories that make most of the world's chips are in Taiwan, a self-governing island claimed by China.
This could bring China and the United States into direct conflict.
Milder than ever, semiconductor executives won't be drawn into discussions of these issues.
"We don't really have a position on geopolitics, we comply with all US regulations that are required as a US company," Vasishta said.
Bergey, who has been in the industry for 25 years, said he has seen French fries go from "really great" to "really boring."
"They're cool right now, maybe too cool with too much attention," he said.
"It's a dynamic thing the industry is dealing with and we'll have to see how these things play out."
