Nvidia’s Power Struggle

For all the hours you spent gaming, prompt engineering on AI tools or cloud computing, Nvidia’s graphic processing unit (GPU) was behind it all. A world leader in artificial intelligence, Nvidia is the second-largest company in terms of market capitalisation, right after Apple. However, their stock performance and hardware have both taken a nosedive recently. 

Stock Shock: The DeepSeek Effect

Nvidia recently faced an unprecedented stock crash, losing nearly $600 billion in market capitalisation in just one day, marking the largest single-day loss for any company in history. This dramatic decline was triggered by the emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese startup that introduced a new AI model capable of competing with Nvidia’s offerings but at a fraction of the cost.

DeepSeek’s open-source AI model R1 matches or even surpasses the performance of its competitors ChatGPT, Dall E, and Gemini at significantly lower operational costs. This has raised eyebrows about the infrastructural expenditure in manufacturing these Nvidia chips and how more can be done with less.

Hardware Headaches: Melting Power Cables

Source - https://www.nvidia.com/en-in/geforce/graphics-cards/50-series/rtx-5090/

As if the stock market turmoil wasn't enough, Nvidia is also grappling with hardware issues. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 brings game-changing capabilities to gamers and creators. Powered by the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture and equipped with 32 GB of superfast GDDR7 memory, the gamer in you can tackle the most challenging workloads with unprecedented AI horsepower.

However, the users of the Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition GPUs have reported incidents of melted power connectors. This problem isn't entirely new; similar issues plagued the RTX 4090 series two years prior. Despite adopting the updated 12V-2×6 connector to prevent such mishaps, reports of burnt connectors and damaged power supply units (PSUs) persist.

Even after downsizing the Nvidia RTX 5090, it continues to consume a lot of power. To power the Nvidia RTX 5090, you need four 8-pin connectors, which then go into the one 12-pin connector in the card. After RTX 4090’s failure, they ensured the new design included shorter sensing pins and longer conductor terminals to ensure a secure connection. But only time will tell whether the Nvidia RTX 5090 can fix these issues without your room catching fire.

These mishaps raise concerns about product reliability and question Nvidia’s reputation as a leader in the tech space. 

What’s Next For Nvidia?

Nvidia’s current meltdown is an eye-opener for all tech aficionados, reminding them of the unpredictability of the tech industry. This underscores how emerging technologies and startups can disrupt established giants, highlighting the critical need for companies to maintain quality and reliability in their products. Despite these challenges, Nvidia remains a dominant player in the tech industry. As AI continues to penetrate every aspect of life, it indicates more AI usage and, therefore more demand for Nvidia technology.