Meta buys millions of NVIDIA chips to power AI expansion
What's the story
Meta has signed a multi-year agreement with NVIDIA to purchase millions of its artificial intelligence (AI) chips. The deal includes both current and future chip models, such as the Blackwell and Rubin AI chips. It also covers standalone installations of Grace and Vera central processors. This deal represents the first large-scale deployment of NVIDIA's Grace CPUs at Meta's data centers.
Performance upgrade
The deal will improve performance-per-watt in Meta's data centers
The deal will see the deployment of millions of NVIDIA's Grace and Vera CPUs in Meta's data centers. This is expected to significantly improve performance-per-watt in these facilities. The agreement also includes plans to add NVIDIA's next-gen Vera CPUs to Meta's data centers by 2027.
Technical hurdles
Meta's in-house chip development facing technical challenges
Despite the partnership with NVIDIA, Meta is also working on its own in-house chips for running AI models. However, according to Financial Times, the company has been facing "technical challenges and rollout delays" with this strategy. Meanwhile, NVIDIA is dealing with concerns about depreciation and chip-back loans used to finance AI buildouts, as well as competitive pressures from other tech giants like Google and AMD.
Strategic move
NVIDIA pushing Grace and Vera CPUs into new fields
The deal with Meta also comes as NVIDIA looks to push its Grace and Vera CPUs into emerging fields like running AI agents. Ian Buck, the general manager of NVIDIA's hyperscale and high-performance computing unit, said these processors can use half the power for common tasks such as running databases. He added that "the results look very promising" after Meta tested some workloads on Vera.