原文標題：
Artificial intelligence
Nvincible?
The AI boom has turbocharged Nvidia’s fortunes. Can it hold its position?
人工智能
無敵？
AI的蓬勃發(fā)展使英偉達市值暴漲。它能安如磐石嗎？

Competition and regulation may pose a threat—but only eventually
競爭和監(jiān)管可能會構(gòu)成威脅--但最終只是威脅

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WAVES OF INNOVATION often create giants. Microsoft rode the upsurge in desktop computers, as Apple did with the smartphone.
創(chuàng)新浪潮往往會造就科技巨頭。例如微軟搭上了臺式電腦的紅利列車，蘋果搭上了智能手機的紅利列車。

Artificial intelligence (AI) may well be the next big technological shift, transforming the way businesses are run and society functions.
人工智能（AI）很可能是下一個重大的技術(shù)變革，它將改變企業(yè)運營和社會運作方式。

If so, plenty of firms selling the software and hardware that underpin AI stand to gain.
如果真是如此，許多支撐AI的軟件和硬件的公司都將獲利頗豐。

But none is better positioned than Nvidia, an American firm that makes specialist AI chips.
但沒有哪家公司比英偉達(Nvidia)公司更具優(yōu)勢，這是一家生產(chǎn)專業(yè)AI芯片的美國公司。

Its market value briefly passed $1trn this week. Will AI sweep Nvidia to big tech-dom?
這周，其市值曾一度超過1萬億美元。AI會推動英偉達成為科技巨頭嗎？

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The hype around AI makes the question hard to answer.

由于AI相關(guān)宣傳太多，因此這個問題目前沒有答案。

Excitement about Nvidia began to mount in November, after the release of ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot. Since then all manner of firms have launched AI-infused products, adding to the fervour.

去年11月，人工智能聊天機器人ChatGPT發(fā)布之后，人們對英偉達的情緒開始升溫。從那以后，各種各樣的科技公司都推出了AI產(chǎn)品，增加了人們的熱情。

Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s boss, is unsurprisingly bullish, talking of a “new computing era”.

英偉達老板黃仁勛非常樂觀，他談到了一個“新的計算時代”。

Investors seem just as jubilant. Nvidia’s share price has more than doubled since the start of the year.
投資者似乎也同樣歡欣鼓舞。自今年年初以來，英偉達的股價已經(jīng)上漲了一倍多。

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Much of the excitement is justified.

市場狂熱在很大程度上是合情合理的。

Nvidia is in an enviable position. Its core business is designing high-performance chips.

英偉達處于一個令人羨慕的地位。其核心業(yè)務(wù)是設(shè)計高性能芯片。

At first it sold these to video-game enthusiasts.The chips were also highly efficient at training AI models, and a new, booming market emerged.

它的最初芯片客戶是電子游戲愛好者。這些芯片在訓練人工智能模型方面也非常高效，于是一個全新的、蓬勃發(fā)展的市場誕生了。

But the firm has not just been lucky.With each generation of new chips, it has improved performance many times over. Today it holds over 80% of the market in specialist AI chips.
但這家公司不僅僅是運氣好。隨著每一代新芯片的問世，它的性能已經(jīng)提高了許多倍。如今，它占據(jù)了 80% 以上的專業(yè) AI 芯片市場。

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Nvidia also had the forethought to invest in two areas that helped cement its supremacy.

英偉達也有先見之明，它在2個領(lǐng)域的投資幫助鞏固了霸主地位。

One is advanced networking. Because training AI models requires vast amounts of processing power, many chips—sometimes thousands—are used simultaneously.

一是高級網(wǎng)絡(luò)。因為訓練AI模型需要大量的處理能力，因此需要同時使用許多芯片（有時甚至達數(shù)千個）。

These chips exchange data along a high-performance, AI-tailored network.

這些芯片通過高性能、AI定制的網(wǎng)絡(luò)交換數(shù)據(jù)。

Today Nvidia controls 78% of that market, thanks to its purchase of Mellanox, a specialist, in 2019.
由于在2019年收購了專業(yè)公司Mellanox，如今英偉達控制了該市場78%的份額。

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Nvidia’s other strength is its software. CUDA, its AI platform, is popular with programmers and runs only on the company’s chips.

二是英偉達的軟件。該公司的人工智能平臺CUDA在程序員中很受歡迎，而且只能在該公司的芯片上運行。

By, for instance, giving free access to its chips and software to some AI researchers, the firm focused on encouraging developers to use its software long before its competitors set out to woo them.

早在競爭對手行動之前，英偉達就專注于鼓勵開發(fā)人員使用其軟件，例如，向一些AI研究人員免費提供其芯片和軟件。

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Despite all these advantages, however, Nvidia’s lasting dominance is not assured.

然而，盡管有這些優(yōu)勢，但英偉達能否保持長久的主導地位還不確定。

For a start, some of the frenzy around AI may die down. The juicier the firm’s prospects, the more competitors it will attract.

首先，AI相關(guān)的狂熱情緒可能會消退。英偉達的發(fā)展前景越好，它吸引的競爭對手就越多。

Startups and big chipmakers, such as AMD and Intel, want a share of Nvidia’s network and chip businesses.

初創(chuàng)企業(yè)和大型芯片制造商（如AMD和英特爾）都想從英偉達的網(wǎng)絡(luò)和芯片業(yè)務(wù)中分一杯羹。

Others are working on open-source and proprietary software that may weaken CUDA’s hold.

其他人則致力于開發(fā)開源和專有軟件，這可能會削弱CUDA的地位。

The biggest challenge, though, may come from Nvidia’s own customers.

不過，最大的挑戰(zhàn)可能來自英偉達自己的客戶。

The cloud-computing arms of both Amazon and Alphabet are designing their own AI-tailored chips. Both have the scale and the deep pockets to become fearsome rivals.
例如，亞馬遜和Alphabet的云計算部門都在設(shè)計自己的AI芯片。兩者都有足夠的規(guī)模和雄厚的資金，這兩家公司的規(guī)模和財力都足以成為英偉達的勁敵。

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Governments also pose a risk. Regulators worried about the dangers AI poses to society and national security are searching for ways to control the technology.

其次是政府監(jiān)管的風險。監(jiān)管機構(gòu)擔心AI對社會和國家安全構(gòu)成危險，他們正在尋找控制該技術(shù)的方法。

Last year America restricted the sale of high-performance chips and chipmaking tools, which dented Nvidia’s sales in the third quarter.

去年，美國限制出售高性能芯片和芯片制造工具，這使英偉達第三季度的銷售受到影響。

If Nvidia is dominant, politicians will find it easier to act.

如果英偉達占主導地位，政客們更容易采取限制措施。

Still, for now the future looks bright. Even if AI mania cools, the technology is bound to be more useful than crypto, another craze that Nvidia cashed in on.

不過，就目前而言，未來依然光明。即使AI 狂熱情緒降溫，該技術(shù)也肯定比加密貨幣更有用，而加密貨幣是英偉達獲利的另一個熱點。

Regulation may crimp growth, but is unlikely to kill it.

監(jiān)管可能會壓制增長，但不太可能一棍子打死。

And none of Nvidia’s rivals is yet offering AI products that bundle together software, chips and networking.

它的競爭對手還沒有推出集軟件、芯片和網(wǎng)絡(luò)于一體的AI產(chǎn)品。

Nvidia’s chief advantage lies in its ability to package these up and create an attractive ecosystem.That sounds a lot like Microsoft and Apple.

英偉達的主要優(yōu)勢在于它有能力將這三者整合起來，創(chuàng)造一個有吸引力的生態(tài)系統(tǒng)，聽起來很像微軟和蘋果的商業(yè)模式。

（恭喜讀完，本篇英語詞匯量643左右）
原文出自：2023年6月3日《The Economist》Leaders版塊
精讀筆記來源于：自由英語之路

本文翻譯整理: Irene本文編輯校對: Irene
僅供個人英語學習交流使用。

【補充資料】（來自于網(wǎng)絡(luò)）
英偉達Nvidia是一家美國的芯片制造公司，成立于1993年，總部位于加利福尼亞州的圣塔克拉拉。該公司主要從事圖形處理器芯片（GPU）和系統(tǒng)芯片的開發(fā)和銷售。英偉達的GPU產(chǎn)品主要用于高性能計算、游戲和專業(yè)應(yīng)用程序，如人工智能、自動駕駛汽車和虛擬現(xiàn)實等領(lǐng)域。

Mellanox是一家以色列的網(wǎng)絡(luò)設(shè)備和芯片制造公司，成立于1999年，總部位于以色列的耶路撒冷。該公司的主要產(chǎn)品包括高速網(wǎng)絡(luò)交換機、網(wǎng)絡(luò)適配器和InfiniBand互連解決方案等。Mellanox的產(chǎn)品廣泛應(yīng)用于數(shù)據(jù)中心、超級計算、云計算和存儲等領(lǐng)域，其高性能、低延遲的網(wǎng)絡(luò)技術(shù)被認為是大數(shù)據(jù)處理和人工智能等領(lǐng)域的關(guān)鍵技術(shù)。

CUDA（Compute Unified Device Architecture）是由英偉達推出的計算機編程平臺和API。它使程序員能夠利用GPU的并行計算能力，加速各種應(yīng)用程序的運行。CUDA包括兩個主要組件：CUDA編程語言和CUDA工具包。CUDA編程語言是一種基于C++的并行計算編程語言。CUDA的主要優(yōu)點是可以大大提高計算密集型應(yīng)用程序的性能，尤其適用于科學計算、機器學習、深度學習、圖像和視頻處理等領(lǐng)域。

【重點句子】（3個）
Artificial intelligence (AI) may well be the next big technological shift, transforming the way businesses are run and society functions.
人工智能（AI）很可能是下一個重大的技術(shù)變革，它將改變企業(yè)運營和社會運作方式。

Nvidia also had the forethought to invest in two areas that helped cement its supremacy.
英偉達也有先見之明，它在2個領(lǐng)域的投資幫助鞏固了霸主地位。

For a start, some of the frenzy around AI may die down. The juicier the firm’s prospects, the more competitors it will attract.
首先，AI相關(guān)的狂熱情緒可能會消退。英偉達的發(fā)展前景越好，它吸引的競爭對手就越多。