NVIDIA and AMD driving massive profits for semiconductor industry, highest since 2009

The last twelve months have been absolutely phenomenal for semiconductor companies, which just enjoyed their best year in over a decade.

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Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index (source: Bloomberg)

Bloomberg reports that the huge numbers were driven by the insatiable demand of artificial intelligence (AI) chips, with the site reporting the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index rising 65% in 2023, which represents the biggest single-year gain for the index since 2009.

All of the stocks except for a single one in the 30-member index skyrocketed in 2023, with a single massive standout on the index: NVIDIA. The company had amazing sales throughout 2023, mostly driven by their extensive AI GPUs. Shares more than tripled, giving NVIDIA the title of the first chipmaker to hit a market capitalization of over $1 trillion.

• Read more: NVIDIA splashes huge money on securing HBM3e for H200 and B100 AI GPUs
• Read more: NVIDIA AI GPU shipments expected to surge 150% year-over-year in 2024

NVIDIA might be first, but AMD is second because of their movements in AI as well, with their stock jumping by nearly 130% in the last year. NVIDIA has been shipping its advanced H100 AI GPU like candy in 2023, with the company reportedly shipping 3.5 million units in 2023 alone.

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But... that's 2023... what about this year? NVIDIA is expecting to generate an insane $300 billion in AI-based sales by 2027, so we should expect non-stop celebrations by Team Green in 2024 and beyond. NVIDIA has its beefed-up H200 AI GPU coming soon, and its next-gen B100 AI GPU powered by the next-gen Blackwell GPU architecture this year, too.

AMD just announced its new Instinct MI300X AI GPU, which will see AMD enter the AI GPU race in big way. Intel is another big player in the AI business, but they've got a LOT of work ahead of them to catch up to AMD... let alone NVIDIA.