Nvidia’s new AI system Vera Rubin is 10 times more efficient than its predecessor — here’s a first look

In this article NVDA Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch now VIDEO 13:59 13:59 First look at Vera Rubin, Nvidia’s next AI system that’s 10 times more efficient Tech Nvidia's earnings on Wednesday are expected to show booming sales of the company's current rack-scale system. But all eyes are on its next AI system, Vera Rubin, which is scheduled to roll out later this year. Vera Rubin, which is made up of 1.3 million components, will deliver 10 times more performance per watt than its predecessor, Grace Blackwell, the company claims. That's a significant development when energy consumption is one of the most critical issues facing the artificial intelligence build-out. CNBC got an exclusive first look at Vera Rubin at Nvidia's headquarters in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia says the new AI system is a complex web of parts sourced from around the world. Its core chips include 72 Rubin graphics processing units, or GPUs, and 36 Vera central processing units, or CPUs, primarily made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co . The other parts, from liquid cooling elements to power systems and compute trays, come from more than 80 suppliers in at least 20 countries, including China, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Israel and the U.S. One big challenge the company faces is the soaring costs of memory due to a global shortage from all the AI-driven demand. Dion Harris, Nvidia's AI infrastructure head, said in an interview that the company has been giving suppliers "very detailed forecasts." "We're aligning to make sure that everything we're shipping will be met by our supply chain," he said. "We're in good shape." It's a critical moment for Nvidia, which dominates the market for AI processors but faces intensifying competition from Advanced Micro Devices as well as custom silicon from Broadcom and Google's homegrown tensor processing units. Nvidia has plans to manufacture up to $500 billion of AI infrastructure in the U.S. through 2029, including making Blackwell...