Nvidia has confirmed that its next-generation Blackwell Ultra GPU will not begin shipping until the third quarter of this year, the company told investors in a briefing on Monday. The chipmaker had previously indicated a late Q2 availability window.
The delay is attributed to thermal management issues identified during final validation testing. Nvidia said the problems have been resolved in the updated design but that the revision process added approximately eight weeks to the production schedule.
Who Is Affected
Blackwell Ultra orders are understood to be concentrated among Nvidia’s largest hyperscaler customers:
- Microsoft — forward orders tied to Azure AI expansion and continued OpenAI infrastructure buildout
- Google — DeepMind research clusters and Google Cloud AI inference capacity
- Meta — Llama model training infrastructure and AI recommendation systems
- Amazon Web Services — confirmed customer, order size undisclosed
None of the four companies commented publicly on the delay. AWS referred questions to Nvidia.
Market Reaction
Nvidia shares fell 4.2% in pre-market trading following the announcement before recovering partially to close down 2.1%. Analysts at Morgan Stanley maintained their Overweight rating, noting that demand for Blackwell-class hardware remains significantly ahead of any competitor offering and that a quarter-delay does not alter the fundamental supply-demand dynamic.
“This is a speed bump, not a roadblock. The customers waiting for Blackwell Ultra have no alternative that delivers comparable performance. They will wait.”
— Joseph Moore, Semiconductor Analyst, Morgan Stanley
What Comes Next
Nvidia indicated that mass production of Blackwell Ultra remains on track for Q3 and that the thermal fix does not require a full tape-out revision — meaning manufacturing can resume without restarting the fab process from the beginning. Volume shipments are now expected to reach customers in late Q3, with deployment at hyperscaler scale anticipated for Q4.
The company’s next public update is scheduled for its earnings call at the end of next month.
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