Data center equipment provider Super Micro shared details about reports of a delay in NVIDIA's latest Blackwell AI GPUs during the firm's Q4 2024 earnings call conference earlier today. Blackwell is NVIDIA's leading edge AI GPU lineup, and during the call, Super Micro's chairperson and CEO Charles Liang shared that the overall impact of any delay should not be significant for his firm and that it was ready to deploy and provide customers with new products like H200 cooling.
Super Micro Treats Potential NVIDIA Delays As Completely Normal, Says Chairperson
The Super Micro earnings call was the first time analysts were able to tune into a company that's a part of NVIDIA's artificial intelligence ecosystem. Right off the bat, the firm's management was peppered with questions about potential GPU delays affecting its financials, which management had shared was because of the nonavailability of components.
The first question that probed Super Micro came from JPMorgan, and in response, Liang affirmed that his firm had "heard that NVIDIA may have some delay." However, he stressed that Super Micro treats any potential delays "as a normal possibility" since technology companies "always have a chance to go in a little bit or push out a little bit."
In this case, it appeared to him that NVIDIA "push[ed] out a little bit," which does not affect Super Micro's ability to provide its customers with a "new solution like H200 cooling" since Super Micro has lots of customers. He concluded by adding that "this push out overall impact to us, there should be not too much."
Among the significant coverage that the rumored Blackwell delay has received, Citi has assured investors that even if the GPUs are delayed, the impact on NVIDIA's financials should only see revenue extended forward from its quarter ending in January to the quarter ending in April 2025. While Super Micro designed liquid cooling solutions keeping the power hungry Blackwell chips in mind, it also offers it for other products such as H200 and H100.
Wells Fargo's question was more direct, with analyst Aaron Rakers cutting to the chase and asking Liang if he believes whether Super Micro "will be shipping the Blackwell platform solutions for revenue in the December quarter, or should we think about the full year guide as a bit more weighted to the back half of the fiscal year given some of these concerns around the timing of Blackwell availability."
Super Micro's fiscal year ends in June of each year, and its fiscal year 2025 will end in June 2025. The firm's full guidance for FY2025 is between $26 billion and $30 billion, and Liang's response to Rakers' direct question was much more telling.
He replied that "I mean, uh, indeed, we are, relatively, very conservative. Understand, Blackwell may postpone, how much, we don't exactly know, because new technology always what, can be, push out, right." He then commented on the revenue impacts based on calendar year quarters, with the third quarter ending in September and the fourth quarter ending in December.
According to the Super Micro chief, "for Q3, for sure, we do not expect, any Blackwell volume. For Q4, I mean December quarter, I guess will be very small. Engineering sample. Small volume, so that really volume I believe will have to be March quarter next year. And that's why we [inaudible] only 26 to 30 billion dollars."
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