In an analyst call today, Nvidia chief financial officer Colette Kress answered a question about the tight supplies of graphics chips and graphics cards for gaming machines.
Kress said during the Q4 earnings call that the shortage of graphics chips — presumably caused by high demand for higher-priced AI chips — will likely last a couple of quarters.
Kress said, “As much as we would love to have additional supply, we do believe for a couple of quarters, it is going to be very tight. If things improve by the end of the year, there is an opportunity to think about what that is from a year-over-year growth, but it’s still too early for us to know at this time, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”
In addition to the shortage of graphics chips, the game industry is also suffering from a shortage of memory chips, again caused by demand for AI. Why’s this happening? If a chip maker can produce chips that sell for a high price, like AI chips, they will make more of those. If gaming chips generate less revenue, they will go to the back of the line.
Sadly, gaming’s big brother AI is getting all of the factory capacity.