After entering a new year, chip giant Nvidia's momentum in AI (artificial intelligence) chip innovation remains strong.
On January 8th local time, before the official start of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the United States, Nvidia launched the new consumer grade graphics card GeForce RTX 40 SUPER series for gamers and creators, with a focus on introducing the generative AI model ACE AI that can bring realistic characters to games and applications.
On the 8th, Nvidia's stock price closed at $522.53 per share, up 6.4%, reaching a historic high with a total market value of $1.29 trillion. NVIDIA has also driven a surge in US chip stocks, with AMD rising over 5% and Intel rising over 3% throughout the day. In the past year, driven by the global AI boom, Nvidia's stock price has risen by over 230%.
Jeff Fisher, Senior Vice President of Nvidia GeForce, said, "Generative AI is now becoming a turning point in the latest technological developments, and Nvidia is at the core of this major technological transformation." According to Fisher, as AI becomes mainstream, Nvidia's RTX GPU shipments exceed 100 million units, and these PC usage scenarios play a crucial role in the emerging field of generative AI. ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion are excellent innovative examples.
At the meeting, Nvidia launched a new GeForce RTX 40 SUPER series, including three GPUs: RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and RTX 4070 Super. Performance upgrades were made to the previous models, which will directly compete with AMD's low-priced high-end chips. Among them, the highest end RTX 4080 SUPER supports 4K panoramic ray tracing games. In the most graphics intensive games, the performance of RTX 4080 SUPER is 1.4 times faster than that of GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, which does not support DLSS frame generation technology.
The RTX 4080 SUPER will be launched on January 31st, priced at $999 (starting from RMB 8099). The RTX 4070 Ti SUPER was launched on January 24th and is priced at $799 (starting from RMB 6499). For consumers, the most cost-effective option may be the RTX 4070 SUPER, which will be launched on January 17th and is priced at $599 (starting from RMB 4899).
Justin Walker, Vice President of NVIDIA, also emphasized at the press conference that NVIDIA's new graphics cards comply with export control requirements and can be provided to Chinese consumers.
According to a report by Global Times on the 8th, foreign media reported that Nvidia has launched a "downgraded version" of the GeForce RTX 4090 D chip to China, but Chinese customers are not interested.
At the regular press conference of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on January 8th, a reporter asked that the US continues to tighten its chip export control measures against China, increasing pressure on Chinese semiconductor companies. What is the spokesperson's comment on this? Spokesperson Mao Ning of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded that the United States has continuously increased its chip export control measures against China under the pretext of so-called "national security", unreasonably suppressing Chinese semiconductor companies, and is a genuine economic bullying act.
Previously, many technology manufacturers, including AMD and Intel, have pointed out that AI PC will become a hot topic this year. At the press conference, Nvidia emphasized that its RTX laptop platform has grown fivefold in the past four years, making it the fastest-growing laptop category. At the meeting, Fisher announced that major OEM manufacturers will launch a series of new RTX laptops and stated, "Thanks to the powerful RT Core and Tensor Core, each RTX laptop has achieved AI ready, bringing users the best gaming and AI experience."
NVIDIA also launched the ACE AI model on the same day, helping users use generative AI technology to make virtual digital characters lifelike, which can run on cloud or local PCs. According to NVIDIA, developers currently actively using ACE include Convai and Charisma AI, Inworld, MiHoYo, NetEase Games, and more.
In addition, the NVIDIA RTX Remix application will be released in public beta on January 22nd. With the help of RTX Remix, game MOD creators can use panoramic ray tracing, DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and generative AI texture tools to remake classic games, converting basic textures into physically accurate 4K high-precision materials.