Microsoft reduces Nvidia' GB200 orders as result of production delays

Microsoft has reportedly reduced its orders of Nvidia’s GB200 amid production delays as the Redmond tech giant’s push for AI continues.

Commercial Times (article in Chinese) first learned that Nvidia’s next-gen Blackwell architecture chip is currently facing technical challenges that have delayed its mass production.

So, with that in mind, Microsoft— one of the Cloud Service Providers (CSPs)— is now reportedly reducing its orders by 40% and shifting some of its demand to the upcoming GB300 chips instead.

“Although NVIDIA announced during a recent earnings call that Blackwell production had officially commenced, the current challenge is insufficient supply, and NVIDIA is working with partners to overcome these issues,” the report reads.

Issues with the design of the backplane connectors, particularly poor testing yields from a U.S.-based Tier-1 supplier’s cartridge connectors, have led to further delays, potentially pushing production back to March 2025.

The GB200, or the Grace-Blackwell Superchip, is a part of Nvidia’s Blackwell GPU architecture that offers up to five times the performance of the previous H100 GPUs, especially in AI.

The GB200 is built to handle large-scale machine learning models, such as those used in AI training for large language models (LLMs). It does come with significant power demands, though, requiring a ballpark of 700W and 1,200W depending on cooling configs.

Nvidia’s GB300, on the other hand, is set to debut by mid-2025 according to Taiwan Economic Daily. It promises fully liquid-cooled systems to manage the increased power assumption & will also feature a socketed design for easier installation and removal of GPUs, unlike the current soldered configurations.