According to two people familiar with the matter, Nvidia will not launch a new graphics chip for gamers this year as the global memory chip shortage caused by the artificial intelligence boom continues to intensify. This will be the first time in thirty years that Nvidia has not released a new gaming graphics processor. Nvidia was founded in the early 1990s and initially designed graphics chips for video games and game consoles. In the early 2010s, it expanded into the field of high-performance artificial intelligence computing chips.
Memory chips are core components of graphics processors, which are widely used in artificial intelligence servers and gaming computers. Nvidia is currently prioritizing its limited supply of memory chips to meet the market demand for artificial intelligence chips.
One of the people familiar with the matter said that Nvidia is also significantly reducing production of the current generation of gaming chips - Nvidia GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards due to the shortage of memory chips. In the past year, due to supply shortages, the prices of Nvidia's new gaming graphics cards have increased at major retail stores and e-commerce platforms.
A spokesperson for Nvidia said in a statement: "Player demand for GeForce RTX series graphics cards remains strong, but there are supply constraints on memory chips." The spokesperson did not comment on the delay in chip release, and added that Nvidia is continuing to deliver all GeForce series products and is working closely with suppliers to maximize the supply of memory chips.
Of course, if market conditions improve, Nvidia executives may still change their decision and launch new gaming chips - after all, the company has always been known for its flexible operations and quick decision-making.
The artificial intelligence boom has fueled a surge in demand for computer memory chips, which are used extensively to train and run machine learning models. The memory chip functions as a "warehouse" for storing data, and the processor paired with it is the "brain" for processing this data. Memory chips are widely used in various consumer electronics products such as smartphones and laptops, and are also used in server chips.
The shortage of memory chips is expected to push up the prices of consumer electronics products. Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that rising memory chip prices will have an impact on the company's profit margins in the third fiscal quarter of fiscal 2026 (March quarter), and hinted that the subsequent impact will be further expanded. He said: "We see that the market price of memory chips is still rising significantly, and we will continue to consider multiple response options."
Game chips and artificial intelligence chips use different types of memory chips, but their memory chips are made of the same raw materials, and there are only three core suppliers: Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology. These manufacturers have difficulty ramping up production capacity quickly because it often takes years to build new chip factories.
NVIDIA's product release pattern is: every other year it launches a main gaming graphics card based on a new chip architecture design, and the next year it launches a slightly upgraded model, mainly to improve storage and computing performance. Two people familiar with the matter said that Nvidia originally planned to launch a slightly upgraded version of the RTX 50 series (development code-named "Kicker") this year, and the design work of the chip has been completed.
But in December 2025, Nvidia management adjusted its plans, telling company employees and suppliers that the release of the Kicker chip would be delayed without giving a new timetable. According to the two people, Nvidia management said that one of the reasons for the delay was that the global memory chip shortage has pushed up chip prices, and the company needs to prioritize the supply of memory chips for its artificial intelligence chip business.
The delay will also delay the release of Nvidia's next-generation gaming graphics cards. One of the people familiar with the matter said that this graphics card, tentatively designated as the RTX 60 series, was originally planned to start mass production at the end of 2027.
Nvidia's current RTX 50 series of gaming graphics cards are built on its existing Blackwell architecture graphics chips, while the RTX 60 series will use a new generation of Rubin architecture chips. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang publicly stated last month that large-scale mass production of Rubin architecture artificial intelligence chips has been launched and the company is expected to deliver the chips to customers in the second half of 2026.
NVIDIA's gaming business performance remains impressive. Its most powerful RTX 5090 graphics card has been sold out since its release in January 2025. At the same time, Nvidia's main competitor Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) failed to form a strong competition, which also gave Nvidia the confidence to postpone the update and iteration of gaming hardware.
AMD executives have said that the company is focusing on developing mid-range performance gaming graphics cards, focusing on high cost performance. Therefore, AMD has no plans to launch a high-end gaming graphics card that can compete head-on with the NVIDIA RTX 50 series in the near future.
With the explosion of the artificial intelligence chip business, the contribution of game chips to Nvidia's revenue has dropped significantly. In the nine months from January to October 2025, Nvidia's gaming graphics card business revenue accounted for about 8% of the company's total revenue; in the same period in 2022, before the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT and the start of the artificial intelligence boom, this proportion was as high as 35%.
The operating profit margin of NVIDIA's artificial intelligence chip business is also much higher than that of the game graphics card business. In the nine months from January to October 2025, Nvidia's computing and networking business, which includes artificial intelligence chips, had an operating profit margin of 65%, while its graphics business, which includes gaming graphics cards, had a profit margin of just 40%.