Tech

Mark Zuckerberg is sitting on a huge stockpile of AI chips as companies compete for limited supplies

Mark Zuckerberg on blue background with chips floating behind him
Mark Zuckerberg Getty Images/Reuters/BI
Read in app

Nvidia's CEO recently shed light on the allocation of its in-demand chips.

The comments have brought Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg's extensive stockpile back into the spotlight.

Jensen Huang told investors on Wednesday that the company was doing its best to share the chips evenly amid unprecedented demand.

"We do the best we can to allocate fairly and to avoid allocating unnecessarily," Huang said in a call with analysts following Nvidia's fourth-quarter results.

Huang was responding to a question about distributing chips between the companies fighting over a limited supply, many of which are competitors.

"At the core of it, we want to allocate fairly, avoiding waste, and looking for opportunities to connect partners and end users," he said.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is plowing on with his plan to acquire hundreds of thousands of chips as part of his ambition to create a "top-level product group" focused on generative AI.

Last month, Zuckerberg told The Verge that Meta would have more than 340,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs — the main chips companies use to train and deploy AI models — by the end of 2024.

Taking into account chips of other types, the CEO said he expected Meta to have amassed 600,000 GPUs by the end of the year, the report said.

The surge in global demand for the chips has dramatically boosted Nvidia's stock over the last 12 months.

The AI chipmaker reported better-than-expected quarterly revenues on Wednesday, with revenues of $22.1 billion in the fourth quarter — a 265% year-on-year increase. Nvidia stock surged almost 15% in premarket trading after posting the blockbuster sales, Business Insider reported.

Meta did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment.

Read next

Beatrice Nolan was a tech reporter on the business news team in the UK. She joined Insider in January 2022 as a fellow on Business Insider's careers desk. Beatrice covered tech and the future of work, with a focus on artificial intelligence. Some of her stories and early experiments with ChatGPT are widely cited. Beatrice has also discussed her work covering AI trends on panels and radio shows, including NPR.She was based in Business Insider's London office and graduated from the University of  York with a bachelor's degree in English.Featured Articles:Artists say AI image generators are copying their style to make thousands of new images — and it's completely out of their control.ChatGPT was a black swan eventFinland is the world's happiest country, but Finns say we're confusing happiness for something elseThe world is splitting between those who use ChatGPT to get better, smarter, richer — and everyone elseThis man used AI to write and illustrate a children's book in one weekend. He wasn't prepared for the backlash.ChatGPT has only been around for 2 months and is causing untold chaosTwo professors who say they caught students cheating on essays with ChatGPT explain why AI plagiarism can be hard to proveChatGPT wrote college application essays. Admissions professionals said they passed for essays written by students but wouldn't have a chance at any top colleges.College professors are considering creative ways to stop students from using AI to cheatChatGPT wrote my cover letters. Here's how recruiters responded.