NVIDIA Abandons Crypto, Claiming that Using GPUs for AI is More Beneficial

Image Source: National Seniors Australia While The Green Team Bets on AI, NVIDIA Claims Crypto Mining & Cryptocurrencies Offer Nothing of Value To Society. In an interview with The Guardian, NVIDIA's CTO, Michael Kagan, argued that cryptocurrencies provide nothing valuable to society. It's an intriguing comment that comes only a few days after NVIDIA's CEO spoke extensively about AI or Artificial Intelligence and how it is the single most important item for the computer industry at GTC 2023. “All this crypto stuff, it needed parallel processing, and [Nvidia] is the best, so people just programmed it to use for this purpose. They bought a lot of stuff, and then eventually it collapsed, because it doesn’t bring anything useful for society. AI does,” Kagan told the Guardian. “I never believed that is something that will do something good for humanity. You know, people do crazy things, but they buy your stuff, you sell them stuff. But you don’t redirect the company to support whatever it is.” Michael goes on to say that there are various other applications for its GPUs and processing capacity, such as artificial intelligence in the form of ChatGPT, rather than crypto mining, which is no longer as profitable as it once was. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, stated at GTC 2023 that he personally handed the first supercomputer to OpenAPI to run ChatGPT's servers. [caption id="attachment_129510" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Image Source: Allure Security[/caption] NVIDIA's experience with cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency mining has been mixed. While the business has aggressively worked to minimize the usage of its gaming gear and GPUs for mining reasons, it did develop a Crypto-specific graphics card range known as NVIDIA CMP that was entirely designed for mining. Additionally, the business witnessed an increase in income during the mining boom, and despite the LHR cards, some of its key partners were still secretly sending GPUs to large crypto users. The business had to pay 5.5 million dollars to resolve a lawsuit with the SEC for failing to disclose to its investors the money generated by selling mining GPUs. The firm had to deal with an oversupply of GPU inventory due to high demand, which took many quarters to stabilize. Graphics card prices also skyrocket during this period. Only in its most recent earnings report did NVIDIA clarify that its inventory supply and price inflation issues had been entirely handled.