Hard disk drives are next in line to become mostly enterprise hardware — as Nvidia (and AMD) could be planning to focus on AI, leaving consumers as second-class citizens
With hard drive shipments down, and enterprises keen to get in on the AI action, will the likes of Nvidia and AMD eventually ditch the consumer market altogether?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Hard drives may become a technology that’s almost exclusively the preserve of enterprise and businesses over the next few years, and there’s every chance that consumer-grade graphics cards will follow suit.
Hard drive shipments declined sharply over the last five consecutive quarters, based on TrendFocus figures, as reported byBlocks and Files, with this trend suggesting thebest SSDsare successfully eating into the wider market.
This is despite many promising hard drive technologies on the horizon including SMR and HAMR options soon to be among thebest hard drives.
Will Nvidia and AMD bow out of the consumer game?
Something similar might be happening in the GPU market as with the hard drive market – withNvidia, for example, reported to be pivoting away from making some of thebest graphics cardsfor consumers.
Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang emailed staff last month to declare the company was pivoting to deep learning, and that the company was “no longer a graphics company”, according tothe Guru of 3D.
With the company enjoying a huge degree of success in manufacturing the industry-leading GPUs used for AI training and inference, especially with the recent generative AI boom, the company could easily tap into this newfound goldmine moving forwards.
Indeed, as we have previously reported, despite both Nvidia and its key rivalAMDbeing a fixture in this particular market, the sales of graphics cards have been poor lately. It could well be that, when it comes to Nvidia at least, the GeForce series is in its final few generations of life.
Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter
Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!
This is because, considering the shortage in supply, there’s likely more money to be made from enterprises vying to get in on the AI action than on cash-strapped consumers right now – especially when the improvements between recent generations of GPUs have been incremental at best.
The forthcoming RTX 5000 series – and then the RTX 6000 series – could well be it for Nvidia’s consumer-grade graphics lineup, with the company instead spelling out aroadmap for annual releases of enterprise-grade GPUs.
More from TechRadar Pro
Keumars Afifi-Sabet is the Technology Editor for Live Science. He has written for a variety of publications including ITPro, The Week Digital and ComputerActive. He has worked as a technology journalist for more than five years, having previously held the role of features editor with ITPro. In his previous role, he oversaw the commissioning and publishing of long form in areas including AI, cyber security, cloud computing and digital transformation.
This new malware utilizes a rare programming language to evade traditional detection methods
Google puts Nvidia on high alert as it showcases Trillium, its rival AI chip, while promising to bring H200 Tensor Core GPUs within days
Arcane season 2 confirms the hit series isn’t just one of the best Netflix shows ever made – it’s an animated legend that’ll stand the test of time
