On the evening of May 25th,
Zhao Chen is sitting in the office and looking through the system implementation schedule that Chen Qiming just sent.
An encrypted video call request from Lin Shicheng popped up in the lower right corner of the computer screen.
New York It's early morning over there, and Lin Shicheng's hair is rarely combed back into a meticulous style.
A few strands of gray hair hang down in front of his forehead, and behind him, outside the office window, is the skyline of Manhattan that just lit up.
"Zhao Zong, Nvidia released the latest season Financial Report after the market closed yesterday."
Lin Shicheng pushed up his glasses, his voice filled with excitement that Zhao Chen rarely heard from him,
"I dissected it piece by piece overnight. You must see what Huang Renxun said on the conference call."
Zhao Chen picked up Zisha Pot and poured a cup of tea.
"The last time you reported to me in this tone was at the beginning of the year when the SEC officially notified all cases to be reviewed and concluded."
"This time is no lighter than that time."
Lin Shicheng sent a densely marked summary of Financial Report to Zhao Chen's mailbox.
Several rows of core data highlighted in red pop up on the screen--
Revenue and net profit both hit record highs.
For the first time, Data Center's business has surpassed the game business to become Nvidia's largest source of income, with a year-on-year increase of nearly 80%.
"The game business has been Nvidia's cash cow for more than 20 years.
It has been the thickest pillar of Nvidia since the GeForce 256 era.
But this season, Data Center surpassed it.
This is not an accidental fluctuation in one quarter.
Huang Renxun used three expressions that had never been used before during the conference call--
'We are in the iPhone moment of AI',
'Data Center is the largest computing platform in the next ten years',
'CUDA ecosystem's moat is deeper than anyone imagined'.
He had never used this level of rhetoric on a Financial Report call before.
Every time this person speaks, he must first run thousands of matrix multiplications using Tensor Core in his mind.
He said the words 'iPhone moment' carry more weight than Wall Street any investment bank's rating report."
Zhao Chen opened Financial Report, and his eyes fell on the growth curve of Data Center's business.
That steep curve almost completely coincides with the AI Computing Power demand growth trajectory that he repeatedly described in Henglong internal discussions a long time ago.
A long time ago, when he was deducing Nvidia's business growth Model alone in the Manhattan hotel,
There is no external data at hand for reference, only the memory in my mind.
Later, the butterfly flapped its wings and the coordinates on the map were offset.
But the slope of the curve itself is not fanned --
It was just pushed to the surface little by little by the global wave of real AI Computing Power demand.
"Why did he say 'iPhone moment'? What exactly did he mean?"
"Huang Renxun explained this analogy on the conference call.
He said that the reason why iPhone changed the mobile phone industry is
Not because it has an extra touch screen than Nokia,
Because it redefines the way mobile phones interact with people.
AI is doing the same thing -- not a few percentage points more efficient than traditional software,
It is to redefine the way computers and people interact.
In the past, people wrote code for the computer to execute, but now the computer learns the rules from the data.
Once this transformation is completed, the global demand for computing power will switch from linear growth to exponential growth.
He gave a specific prediction - in the next ten years, the total computing power demand of Data Center globally will increase millions of times.
This is not a slogan, it is based on the current number of developers of CUDA ecosystem,
Data derived from enterprise customer growth curves and cloud service provider capital expenditure plans.
I have cross-validated it with the independent Model of Henglong Research Institute, and the conclusion is consistent."
Zhao Chen turned over Financial Report, and his fingers stopped at the edge of the page.
He knew before that Nvidia's Data Center business would explode.
It's because the prophet's memory told him that the demand for AI Computing Power will start to increase exponentially at a certain point in time.
He laid out Nvidia in advance, betting that the coordinates on that map would be correct.
But now Huang Renxun uses Financial Report data, conference call minutes and public market research.
The same conclusion was derived again.
It does not rely on someone's prophet, but on Nvidia's own performance and the real computing power demand of the global market.
"Lawyer Lin, you just said that CUDA ecosystem's moat - what specific data did Huang Renxun disclose?"
"Two key figures.
The first is the number of CUDA developers, which exceeded two million for the first time.
The second is the number of enterprise-level GPU acceleration customers, which has increased several times in the past three years.
CUDA did not have two million developers overnight.
These people have been using CUDA to write papers since they were in college.
After graduation, I entered an enterprise and used CUDA for deep learning training.
Their code, Model, and underlying framework are all CUDA native.
This means that any competitor who wants to challenge Nvidia,
What needs to be copied is not a GPU chip, but a developer ecosystem of two million people that has been cultivated for more than ten years.
The developer ecosystem is a moat, but the word moat is not accurate enough.
The moat is static, as long as the water does not flow away.
CUDA is living water - two million developers write code, publish papers, start businesses, and get investment on it.
The innovative base for the entire AI industry is provided by CUDA.
Any company that wants to challenge Nvidia needs to copy not just the performance parameters of a chip.
It is a creative New Life ecosystem that has been circulating on its own for more than ten years."
Zhao Chen Turn Financial Report to the business page of Data Center,
Next to the minutes of a phone call, write a few lines of words Fountain Pen:
"Two years ago I said that Nvidia is not a chip company, but a money printing machine in the era of computing power.
I was telling you an answer at that time.
Now Huang Renxun has two million CUDA developers, and Data Center's revenue exceeds that of games,
AI Computing Power Demand will grow millions of times over the next decade—these public data—reintroducing the same conclusion.
It does not rely on someone's personal judgment, but on Nvidia's own performance and the real computing power demand of the global market.
This is the most important meaning of tonight's Financial Report to me."
Lin Shicheng looked at the line of words written by Zhao Chen on the screen and pushed up his glasses.
Last night when he dismantled Nvidia Financial Report piece by piece,
I wrote a sentence on the note paper at hand and placed it in the corner of the desktop - "Logic verification completed."
The forecast is consistent with the data, and the forecaster does not have the exclusive right to interpret it."
At this moment, he picked up the note and shook it at the screen.
"Zhao Zong, I was thinking about one thing last night when I wrote this line--
Previously Era Vanguard The most valuable thing is your judgment.
The most valuable thing in the future is this position logic that can be re-verified by any independent institution using public data.
Now the whole world is using real data and performance to help you recalculate the answer."
Zhao Chen put down Fountain Pen and leaned back on the chair.
The more replaceable he is in Era Vanguard, the more relaxed he will be, and he will not have to worry about being abandoned by the times one day.
After all, the memory of rebirth will one day be overwritten. When he loses the advantage of rebirth, where will he go?
Now, Henglong and Era Vanguard have given him the answer.