aDam Smith would be stumped by microelectronics. When the great economist died in 1790, James Watt’s two-cylinder steam engine reached the pinnacle of technological sophistication. If he recognized the prefix “nano” – a reasonable bet for a precocious classicist who was familiar with dead languages at the age of 14 – it was the Greek word for “dwarf.” It is a derivative and does not refer to one billionth of a meter. Modern semiconductors are measured. Although the word “one billion” had entered the English language by Smith’s time, the number it meant would have seemed unfathomable. Do Nvidia’s latest Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips have about 200 billion transistors etched into them for a few pennies? Black magic, even for an enlightened Scottish rationalist.
Who else can make a lot of money on chips other than Nvidia?
By NvidiaDaily
