LCalifornia was built on the myth of the gold rush. Seven years of madness which populated this end of the world and resulted, in 1850, in the creation of the richest American state. This boom did not enrich many miners but taught its inhabitants one thing: it was the shovel and pickaxe merchants who made their fortune. Samuel Brannan was the first millionaire of the period, with his stores where customers paid in nuggets.
The latest rush is called artificial intelligence and, for the moment, the only one making money from it is neither OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, nor its protector, Microsoft, but Nvidia, the electronics company that supplies the chips for the machines.
The publication of its results for the third quarter of this year gives a dizzying measure of this. Its turnover increased by 206% compared to 2022, to 18 billion dollars (16.5 billion euros), and its net profit by 588%, to 10 billion dollars. Not bad for a company without factories, known for its graphics cards beloved by video game fans.
The seven new mercenaries
The intelligence of its founder, Jensen Huang, is to have built, from his expertise in graphics chips, an entire ecosystem including the microprocessor, the complete electronic card, services and software. A unique set that has become essential for the construction of computer servers powerful enough to run artificial intelligences that are so demanding in calculations.
An A100 card, one of its flagship models, is a computer in itself with components, processors and memories. Each copy sells for between 10,000 and 20,000 euros, and it takes several thousand to constitute a server center. Its clients include Google, Amazon, Microsoft, with their thousands of server centers around the world.
Always in anticipation, the Stock Exchange has propelled Nvidia’s price to the roof of the world over the past year. Its price has tripled. With a capitalization of 1,200 billion dollars, the company is now part of the gang of “Magnificent Seven”, these seven new mercenaries called Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla. They alone explain the entire growth of the American stock market in 2023.
But the gold rush also taught Californians that the wheel turns. Samuel Brannan died ruined and Nvidia’s six friends and clients all plan to design their own chips, while the Chinese market is increasingly banned by Washington. Fleas, like gold, burn fingers quickly.