AI server shipments are bucking the trend in the tech industry with growth forecast in double digits through 2026. Research analyst firm TrendForce predicts that by the end of 2026, around 200,000 AI servers will ship to the world. CSPs (cloud service providers), up from around 125,000 by 2022.
While Microsoft, Google, AWS, and Meta account for most of these purchases, ByteDance, the company behind the global phenomenon that is Tiktok, has established itself as the leader in AI server purchases with a 6,2 market share. %, almost as much as the others. three Chinese giants combined (Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent).
Including new features like the incredibly popular "Bold Glamour" filter requires a significant amount of processing, some of it done on the smartphone itself and some of it on TikTok's own servers.
AI servers represent only a small fraction of the overall server market (around 1%), but they typically cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each and generate high margins as well. They represent rare good news in a mediocre market. Global server shipments are expected to rise around 1% to just over 14 million units.
GPU vendor Nvidia, in particular, is benefiting from the current AI boom (fueled by ChatGPT and other similar AI technologies) with an estimated 80% market share as its technology is at the core of IT training. AI.
Accelerating AI adoption
The export control restrictions put in place by the US Department of Commerce against Chinese companies are unlikely to dampen the appetite of Chinese hyperscalers to buy AI servers at a fast pace. The A800, released in November 2022 by Nvidia to meet the US government's clear test of easing export controls, has lower available interconnect bandwidth (400 GB/s vs. 600 GB/s). GB/s) compared to the A800 A100, which may hamper China's efforts. in AI training, but it doesn't. Don't stop it completely.
Anecdotal evidence points to dumping of high-performance AMD EPYC processors on the Chinese market, perhaps a sign that cloud service providers are investing heavily in new servers capable of supporting large numbers of GPGPUs simultaneously.
TrendForce concludes its report by saying that "Businesses and organizations are cutting back on IT spending as the global economy is plagued by high inflation and slow growth. However, with applications like chatbots and search engines increasing In demand for AI-driven technology transformation, cloud companies will prioritize related activities or projects when allocating capital expenditures.