Nvidia's Chip Sales Forecast Hinges on Uncertain Supply Chain

Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang has made bold predictions before, but his recent comment on doubling chip sales has left many wondering what it actually means. Speaking at an AI summit in Scotland, Huang said he expects Nvidia to sell twice as many chips next year as this year, citing the growing demand for artificial intelligence.

However, a closer look at the numbers reveals that Huang was talking about unit volume, not revenue. This means that a doubling of chip sales could be driven by cheaper, high-volume parts rather than the more expensive and complex GPUs.

Nvidia's CFO Colette Kress has previously described the doubling scenario as the supply-unconstrained case, meaning that it's what would happen if nothing breaks in the supply chain. But given the complexity of coordinating thousands of component suppliers to deliver millions of parts on schedule, something usually does break.