5 big takeaways from Nvidia GTC

Feature
Mar 25, 20253 mins

Networking, liquid cooling, infrastructure plans, and partners will all play a big role in Nvidia’s future.

AI skills
Credit: Shutterstock/Nichcha

Now that the dust has settled from Nvidia’s GTC 2025, a few industry experts weighed in on some core big picture developments from the conference. Five of their top observations include the following:

End-to-end Nvidia

Nvidia is an end-to-end computer company, with communications, storage controller, compute and if needed, display capabilities. “Nvidia has evolved from a gaming chip company to an AI supercomputer company with a deep and wide software stack that covers over a dozen vertical apps, super hi-speed electro-optical inter-processor communications, and a killer processor that uses the latest HBM4 high-speed high-density memory. The company also announced GPUs would now power the latest storage systems. All in all, Nvidia has scaled out, and up and is a total computer supplier,” said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Associates.

Nvidia as an infrastructure provider

Anshel Sag, senior analyst with Moor Research and Insights, says Nvidia is evolving from being just a parts provider to a full-stack offering. “Nvidia also gave a lot of visibility of its roadmap in a way that it previously hasn’t with Feynman all the way out to 2028. This is only because Nvidia needs to communicate clearly with its ecosystem and enable them to plan that far out,” he said.

Liquid cooling here to stay

Liquid-cooled switches will become a necessity, not a choice, according to aSameh Boujelbene, vice president with the Dell’Oro Group. “After liquid cooling racks and servers, switches are next. Nvidia’s latest 51.2 T SpectrumX switches offer both liquid-cooled and air-cooled options. However, all future 102.4 T Spectrum-X switches will be liquid-cooled by default,” she wrote in a blog about GTC.

Nvidia networking everywhere?

At GTC 2025, Nvidia unveiled plans for its upcoming NVLink 6/7 and NVSwitch 6/7, key components of its next-generation Rubin platform, reinforcing the critical role of NVLink switches in its strategy. Additionally, the Spectrum-X switch platform, designed for scaling out, represents another major pillar of Nvidia’s vision. Nvidia is committed to a “one-year rhythm,” with networking, keeping pace with GPU requirements, Boujelbene stated.

Everyone wants to partner with Nvidia

There was a much bigger focus on partnerships this year: Cisco for networking; Cisco and T-Mobile for 5G/6G; Dell, HP and Lenovo for their DGX Spark and Studio hardware platforms; Dell, HPE, Lenovo, Supermicro and others for the Blackwell Ultra server systems and more, said Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst with TECHnalysis Research.

Andy Patrizio is a freelance journalist based in southern California who has covered the computer industry for 20 years and has built every x86 PC he’s ever owned, laptops not included.

Andy writes the Data Center Explorer blog for Network World. His work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Tom's Guide, Wired, Dr. Dobbs Journal, Tech Target, Business Insider, and Data Center Knowledge. Earlier in his career, he held editorial positions at IT publications like InternetNews, PC Week and InformationWeek.

Andy holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Rhode Island.

More from this author