Nvidia’s Blackwell AI GPU overheating issues are seemingly overhyped — semiconductor analysts reveal cooling issues have been mostly addressed
semiconductor

Nvidia’s Blackwell AI GPU overheating issues are seemingly overhyped — semiconductor analysts reveal cooling issues have been mostly addressed

Reports of Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72 server racks overheating have purportedly been exaggerated. Business Insider reports that Blackwell’s cooling design faults have already been addressed. Dylan Patel, chief analyst at Semianalysis, purportedly told Business Insider that Blackwell’s design issues, which have been present for months, have been largely addressed, stating that the overheating issues are largely overblown.

Semianalysis’ five analysts monitoring the semiconductor industry reported that the cooling system issues triggering “reworks” from several suppliers were a “minor” change. Blackwell’s cooling faults have been specifically problematic with Nvidia’s massive 72-chip server rack, which can consume up to 120kW. Design flaws in the rack’s design have forced Nvidia to reevaluate its design multiple times due to the GPUs inside overheating. This has setback shipments of Nvidia’s GB200 hardware, causing additional delays due to the required design changes.

Nvidia’s B200 GPUs are the most potent processing chips for AI workloads. The GB200 superchip, for instance, has a configurable TDP in the thousands of watts, with a peak rating of up to 2,700 watts. These absurdly high power figures make air cooling virtually impossible to use in the constraints of a standard rack mount form factor.

Nvidia

(Image credit: Nvidia)

This physics problem has forced Nvidia to require liquid cooling on its latest Blackwell GPUs. It also requires data centers to revamp their server farms to accommodate the infrastructure needed to support liquid-cooled servers.

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