During his inaugural trip to Southeast Asia, NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen Huang, expressed that Vietnam is considered the company's home. He confirmed the company's intention to establish a center in the country, emphasizing its purpose as a hub to attract global talent to advance Vietnam's semiconductor industry and digitalization, as reported by Vietnamese media.
The Chipmaker's Team-Up with Vietnam
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang envisions Vietnam as a potential secondary home for the graphics processing and artificial intelligence (AI) chip leader. There are plans to establish a base in the country. Speaking at an event in Hanoi on Monday, Huang announced plans to strengthen partnerships with various Vietnamese companies, including Viettel, FPT, Vingroup, and VNG, and expressed interest in establishing a second NVIDIA base in Vietnam.
Having invested $250 million in Vietnam, NVIDIA is scheduled to discuss semiconductor collaboration agreements with Vietnamese tech companies and authorities in a meeting on Monday, as reported by Reuters on Friday.
The chipmaker has partnered with Vietnam's top tech firms to implement AI in cloud computing, automotive, and healthcare industries. This information was revealed in a September document published by the White House when diplomatic relations between Washington and Vietnam were strengthened.
NVIDIA's commitment to expanding in Vietnam could enhance its supply chain diversification, which aligns with the U.S. government's interest in strengthening diplomatic ties with Vietnam amid U.S.-China tensions. Despite NVIDIA shares initially declining by 1.7% on Monday, they have significantly increased in value, more than tripling so far this year.
China Tensions
Vietnam, housing major chip assembly factories, including Intel's most significant globally, aims to broaden its presence in chip design and potentially chip manufacturing, as trade tensions between the United States and China are creating opportunities for other countries in the region. Last week, during a meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Huang mentioned NVIDIA's goal to establish a network of AI chip plants in Japan.
NVIDIA Plans for 2024
Apart from their current collaboration, the company has hinted at its upcoming plans. In a report on November 7, the company announced the launch of its RTX 4070 Super and RTX 4080 Super GPUs in 2024. This information was also supported by hardware leaker Kopite7kimi, which is known for providing trustworthy NVIDIA hardware information.
Kopite7kimi mentioned that the introduction of the RTX 40 series Super cards is expected at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2024. Although the company is not formally registered as a CES exhibitor, it often uses conference rooms for press briefings and displays of its latest gaming technology.
Leakers in the hardware community have been slowly sharing details about the RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Super cards. There are indications that the RTX 4080 Super may come with 20GB of VRAM. Additionally, a larger memory bus is expected for both RTX 40-series Super GPUs compared to the current 4080/4070 cards.
The RTX 4080 Super is expected to have a 320-bit memory bus, and the RTX 4070 Super might come with a 256-bit memory bus. It's crucial to recognize that these details are still based on rumors until officially confirmed by NVIDIA.
