《经济学人》双语：为什么英伟达能成为AI浪潮中的赢家？

原文标题：
Artificial intelligence
Nvincible?
The AI boom has turbocharged Nvidia’s fortunes. Can it hold its position?
人工智能
无敌？
AI的蓬勃发展使英伟达市值暴涨。它能安如磐石吗？

Competition and regulation may pose a threat—but only eventually
竞争和监管可能会构成威胁--但最终只是威胁

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WAVES OF INNOVATION often create giants. Microsoft rode the upsurge in desktop computers, as Apple did with the smartphone.
创新浪潮往往会造就科技巨头。例如微软搭上了台式电脑的红利列车，苹果搭上了智能手机的红利列车。

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）很可能是下一个重大的技术变革，它将改变企业运营和社会运作方式。

If so, plenty of firms selling the software and hardware that underpin AI stand to gain.
如果真是如此，许多支撑AI的软件和硬件的公司都将获利颇丰。

But none is better positioned than Nvidia, an American firm that makes specialist AI chips.
但没有哪家公司比英伟达(Nvidia)公司更具优势，这是一家生产专业AI芯片的美国公司。

Its market value briefly passed $1trn this week. Will AI sweep Nvidia to big tech-dom?
这周，其市值曾一度超过1万亿美元。AI会推动英伟达成为科技巨头吗？

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The hype around AI makes the question hard to answer.

由于AI相关宣传太多，因此这个问题目前没有答案。

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，人工智能聊天机器人ChatGPT发布之后，人们对英伟达的情绪开始升温。从那以后，各种各样的科技公司都推出了AI产品，增加了人们的热情。

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

英伟达老板黄仁勋非常乐观，他谈到了一个“新的计算时代”。

Investors seem just as jubilant. Nvidia’s share price has more than doubled since the start of the year.
投资者似乎也同样欢欣鼓舞。自今年年初以来，英伟达的股价已经上涨了一倍多。

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Much of the excitement is justified.

市场狂热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.

英伟达处于一个令人羡慕的地位。其核心业务是设计高性能芯片。

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.

它的最初芯片客户是电子游戏爱好者。这些芯片在训练人工智能模型方面也非常高效，于是一个全新的、蓬勃发展的市场诞生了。

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.
但这家公司不仅仅是运气好。随着每一代新芯片的问世，它的性能已经提高了许多倍。如今，它占据了 80% 以上的专业 AI 芯片市场。

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

英伟达也有先见之明，它在2个领域的投资帮助巩固了霸主地位。

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

一是高级网络。因为训练AI模型需要大量的处理能力，因此需要同时使用许多芯片（有时甚至达数千个）。

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

这些芯片通过高性能、AI定制的网络交换数据。

Today Nvidia controls 78% of that market, thanks to its purchase of Mellanox, a specialist, in 2019.
由于在2019年收购了专业公司Mellanox，如今英伟达控制了该市场78%的份额。

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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.

二是英伟达的软件。该公司的人工智能平台CUDA在程序员中很受欢迎，而且只能在该公司的芯片上运行。

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.

早在竞争对手行动之前，英伟达就专注于鼓励开发人员使用其软件，例如，向一些AI研究人员免费提供其芯片和软件。

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

然而，尽管有这些优势，但英伟达能否保持长久的主导地位还不确定。

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相关的狂热情绪可能会消退。英伟达的发展前景越好，它吸引的竞争对手就越多。

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

初创企业和大型芯片制造商（如AMD和英特尔）都想从英伟达的网络和芯片业务中分一杯羹。

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

其他人则致力于开发开源和专有软件，这可能会削弱CUDA的地位。

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

不过，最大的挑战可能来自英伟达自己的客户。

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，亚马逊和Alphabet的云计算部门都在设计自己的AI芯片。两者都有足够的规模和雄厚的资金，这两家公司的规模和财力都足以成为英伟达的劲敌。

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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.

其次是政府监管的风险。监管机构担心AI对社会和国家安全构成危险，他们正在寻找控制该技术的方法。

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

去年，美国限制出售高性能芯片和芯片制造工具，这使英伟达第三季度的销售受到影响。

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

如果英伟达占主导地位，政客们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.

不过，就目前而言，未来依然光明。即使AI 狂热情绪降温，该技术也肯定比加密货币更有用，而加密货币是英伟达获利的另一个热点。

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

监管可能会压制增长，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.

它的竞争对手还没有推出集软件、芯片和网络于一体的AI产品。

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.

英伟达的主要优势在于它有能力将这三者整合起来，创造一个有吸引力的生态系统，听起来很像微软和苹果的商业模式。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量643左右）
原文出自：2023年6月3日《The Economist》Leaders版块
精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路

本文翻译整理: Irene本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）
英伟达Nvidia是一家美国的芯片制造公司，成立于1993年，总部位于加利福尼亚州的圣塔克拉拉。该公司主要从事图形处理器芯片（GPU）和系统芯片的开发和销售。英伟达的GPU产品主要用于高性能计算、游戏和专业应用程序，如人工智能、自动驾驶汽车和虚拟现实等领域。

Mellanox是一家以色列的网络设备和芯片制造公司，成立于1999年，总部位于以色列的耶路撒冷。该公司的主要产品包括高速网络交换机、网络适配器和InfiniBand互连解决方案等。Mellanox的产品广泛应用于数据中心、超级计算、云计算和存储等领域，其高性能、低延迟的网络技术被认为是大数据处理和人工智能等领域的关键技术。

CUDA（Compute Unified Device Architecture）是由英伟达推出的计算机编程平台和API。它使程序员能够利用GPU的并行计算能力，加速各种应用程序的运行。CUDA包括两个主要组件：CUDA编程语言和CUDA工具包。CUDA编程语言是一种基于C++的并行计算编程语言。CUDA的主要优点是可以大大提高计算密集型应用程序的性能，尤其适用于科学计算、机器学习、深度学习、图像和视频处理等领域。

【重点句子】（3个）
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）很可能是下一个重大的技术变革，它将改变企业运营和社会运作方式。

Nvidia also had the forethought to invest in two areas that helped cement its supremacy.
英伟达也有先见之明，它在2个领域的投资帮助巩固了霸主地位。

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相关的狂热情绪可能会消退。英伟达的发展前景越好，它吸引的竞争对手就越多。