Chip Outlook Depends on Tech Giants Not Cutting Too Deeply


亚马逊、Facebook、谷歌和微软的成本削减可能会削弱用于重大芯片采购的资本支出。


图为位于新墨西哥州洛斯卢纳斯的Facebook数据中心服务器。

对于芯片行业来说，上周是令人困惑的一周，但有一点是明确的，那就是该行业近期的命运可能掌握在那些面临着削减自身成本之巨大压力的科技巨头手中。 6park.com
In what has been a confusing week for the chip industry, one thing is clear: its near-term fate may be in the hands of the same tech giants who are under a lot of pressure to slash their own costs.  6park.com
  
同在上周三发布的英伟达(Nvidia Corp., NVDA)财报和美光科技公司(Micron Technology Inc., MU)减产预警似乎描绘了两幅不同的画面。英伟达的两项关键业务——数据中心和游戏的表现好于华尔街预期，同时还对2023年发布了乐观预期，得益于这两个部门都有新产品推出。另一方面，美光表示计划削减产量，以便使明年的DRAM内存产量较今年有所下降，作为解决个人电脑和智能手机等主要芯片市场迅速恶化造成的供应过剩的举措之一。摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)的Joseph Moore在给客户的一份报告中称此举是“史无前例的”；他将美光纳入研究范围已有十余年。 6park.com
Quarterly results from Nvidia and a production cut warning from Micron, both on Wednesday, seemingly painted two different pictures. Nvidia managed to beat Wall Street’s estimates for its key data center and videogames businesses while also sounding an optimistic note for 2023, because of new products for both segments. Micron, on the other hand, says it plans to slash production in order to produce less DRAM memory next year than it will this year, as part of an effort to address oversupply caused by the rapid deterioration of major chip markets such as PCs and smartphones. Morgan Stanley’s Joseph Moore, who has covered Micron for more than a decade, called the move “unprecedented” in a note to clients.   6park.com
  
综合来看，这两家公司的最新情况显示，芯片行业仍深陷于严重滑坡之中，复苏的时间还未可知。英伟达的游戏业务收入同比下滑51%，该公司仍在努力解决库存过剩问题，其数据中心业务同比增长31%，增速是上一财季增速的近一半。在该公司截至明年1月份的第四财季，预计这两项业务都不会有太大的改善。 6park.com
Taken together, the updates from both companies show the chip industry is still mired in a major slowdown, with the timing of a recovery unclear. Nvidia’s gaming segment revenue plunged 51% from a year earlier as the company is still working through an inventory glut, while its data center segment growth of 31% year-over-year was nearly half the growth rate of the previous quarter. Both aren’t expected to see much improvement in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter ending in January.  6park.com
  
英伟达正寄希望于新芯片来推动明年的复苏。特别具有重要意义的是一款名为Hopper的图形处理器(GPU)，该工具是为数据中心的人工智能计算设计的。英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋(Jensen Huang)上周三表示，公司正计划在第一季度对该芯片“大量”发货，还称“客户们强烈要求尽快提供Hopper”。这一点非常重要，因为数据中心终于超过游戏成为英伟达最大的业务部门；分析师预计，本财年数据中心收入将超过150亿美元，相比之下游戏收入约为88亿美元。 6park.com
Rather, Nvidia is banking on new chips to power a revival next year. Of particular import is a graphics processor called Hopper that is designed for artificial intelligence computing in data centers. Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said Wednesday that the company is planning to ship “large volumes” of the chip in the first quarter, adding that “customers are clamoring to ramp Hopper as quickly as possible.” This is important because data centers have finally overtaken gaming to become Nvidia’s largest segment; analysts expect data center revenue to top $15 billion in the current fiscal year compared with about $8.8 billion for gaming.  6park.com
  
但是，整个数据中心市场在很大程度上取决于最大型科技公司是否愿意继续每年拿出数十亿的资本支出。鉴于他们现在都在努力降低自身成本，这一点还远未确定。亚马逊首席执行官贾西(Andy Jassy)周四表示，公司正计划在明年进行裁员；预计该公司企业运营业务的约1万名员工将受到影响。微软已经启动了人数较少的裁员行动，并正在采取进一步措施来削减开支。谷歌母公司Alphabet已释放出计划关注其支出的迹象，同时于上周被一名激进投资者盯上，寻求在该公司进行大幅裁员。上述三家公司运营着最大规模的公共云服务，过去四个季度共花费了1,206亿美元的资本支出。 6park.com
But the overall data center market depends in large part on the continued willingness of the biggest tech companies to keep shelling out many billions a year in capital expenditures. And that is far from certain given that they are all now working to bring down their own costs. Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy said on Thursday that the company is planning cuts for next year; about 10,000 employees of the company’s corporate operations are expected to be affected. Microsoft has initiated a smaller number of layoffs and is taking further actions to cut spending. Google parent Alphabet has signaled plans to watch its spending and has been targeted by an activist investor this week seeking substantial job cuts at the search giant. The three run the largest public cloud services, and have spent a combined $120.6 billion in capex over the past four quarters.



然后是Facebook的母公司Meta Platforms (META)，该公司在过去一年里大幅增加支出，努力朝着“元宇宙公司”的转型。该策略加上线上广告收入的放缓引发了投资者的不满，令Meta一度高达1万亿美元的市值自转型计划推出以来缩水了逾三分之二。Meta上周宣布裁员，影响到约11,000名员工，与此同时Meta还计划将原定的2023年资本支出区间中点降低10亿美元。 6park.com
Then there is Facebook parent Meta Platforms, which ramped up spending sharply over the past year to power its transition into a “metaverse company.” That, along with a slowdown in online advertising, sparked an investor revolt that has taken more than two-thirds off the company’s once $1 trillion market capitalization since the plan was first announced. The company announced layoffs last week affecting about 11,000 employees, along with plans to trim the midpoint of its planned capex range for 2023 by $1 billion.  6park.com
  
削减运营费用并不总是意味着削减资本支出。但是，在紧随全球金融危机出现的上一次美国经济大衰退中，虽然Facebook当时还没有成为一家上市公司，但亚马逊、微软和谷歌都已是上市巨头，而且这三家公司都表现出缩减资本支出的倾向。根据标普全球市场财智(S&P Global Market Intelligence)的数据，在2007年危机爆发时，前述三家公司的资本支出增长都比之前一年大大放缓，而且在2007年至2009年的三年期间，这三家公司的资本支出合计平均年增长1%，而之前三年间的平均年增长率高达62%。 6park.com
Operating expense cuts don’t always mean capex cuts. But while Facebook wasn’t around as a public company for the last major U.S. recession following the global financial crisis, Amazon, Microsoft and Google were, and all three showed a propensity to scale back capex. When the crisis hit in 2007, capex growth at each slowed considerably compared with the previous year, and combined capex for the three averaged 1% annual growth for the three-year period ranging from 2007 to 2009 compared with an average of 62% annual growth for the three-year period right before, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.  6park.com
  
有点讽刺的是，美光减产之举也可能反映出押注大型科技公司的行为。瑞银(UBS)的Tim Arcuri说，云计算巨头最终出现了囤积的内存过剩的问题，并因此一直在削减订单。但他说，一旦库存消耗完，美光明年的减产应该会导致价格跳升，尤其是在英伟达这样的供应商即将推出新的需耗用大量内存的处理芯片时。Arcuri在接受采访时说：“鉴于云计算公司明年必须购买的服务器数量，DRAM消费量有很大的增加。”他表示：“如果等待供货的时间太长，价格将会上涨，从而也狠狠打击到大型科技公司。”我们只能寄望于大型科技公司到那时候仍有很强的支出意愿。 6park.com
Micron’s move to cut production also may ironically reflect a bet on Big Tech. Tim Arcuri of UBS says cloud giants have ended up with excess memory in their inventories and have thus been cutting back on orders. But he says Micron cutting production next year should result in price jumps once the inventory is consumed, especially with new memory-hungry processing chips from suppliers such as Nvidia on the way. “There’s a big step up in DRAM consumption for servers that the cloud guys have to buy next year,” Mr. Arcuri said in an interview. “If they wait too long, prices are going to go the other way on them pretty hard.” One only hopes that big tech is still in a spending mood by then. 6park.com