Nvidia must increase its production of graphics processing units (GPUs) to address a shortage caused by cryptocurrency miners, said the companyâs chief executive on Monday.
The California-based companyâs GPUs are highly sought after by both gamers and crypto miners due to their parallel processing power â and the surge in crypto mining has made it difficult for gamers to get their hands on the products, said Jen-Hsun Huang, who is also the companyâs co-founder, during an interview with TechCrunch.
He noted that:
âWeâre sold out of many of our high-end SKUs, and so itâs a real challenge keeping [graphic cards] in the marketplace for games ⦠we have to build a whole lot more ⦠Weâve got to come closer to the demand of the market. And right now weâre not anywhere near close to that and so weâre just going to have to keep running.â
The demand comes â at least partly â from the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies, Huang explained.
He told TechCrunch that âat the highest level the way to think about that is because of the philosophy of cryptocurrency â which is really about taking advantage of distributed high-performance computing â there are supercomputers in the hands of almost everybody in the world so that no singular force or entity that can control the currency.â
Despite the GPU shortage, crypto miners still comprise only a small portion of Nvidiaâs total business, Huang said in the interview.
Last month, Huang noted that âcrypto ⦠is not going to go awayâ during an interview with Barronâs. At the time, Nvidia announced that its revenue from cryptocurrency miners had beaten expectations, though chief financial officer Colette Kress minimized the impact miners actually had during an earnings call.
Jen-Hsun Huang image via Nvidia Taiwan / Flickr