Quoc Hung Vuong

Module 9-10
1. Has your company ever pursued a horizontal integration strategy? What was the
strategic reason for pursuing this strategy?
Nvidia has used a horizontal integration strategy by acquiring other technology companies to
expand its capabilities and market share. And Nvidia has mainly acquired companies in the fields
of AI, data centers and high-performance computing, to consolidate its dominant position in the
GPU, AI computing and cloud infrastructure markets. And here are Nvidia's important deals.
The first is the acquisition of VinBrain in December 2024, an AI company belonging to
Vingroup in Vietnam. This deal is a springboard for Nvidia to set up an AI design center in
Vietnam, to expand its presence in Southeast Asia and take advantage of cheap and high-quality
human resources in the region.
Next up is the $700 million acquisition of Run:ai, an Israeli GPU software orchestration startup,
in 2024. Nvidia acquired the company to help optimize AI computing performance, improve AI
cloud computing capabilities, and improve the performance of its DGX Cloud service.
The third deal is the acquisition of Deci AI in 2024 for $300 million. This is also an Israeli
startup that specializes in providing AI model optimization tools. The acquisition of Deci AI
helps Nvidia improve its ability to develop and deploy AI models, helping developers get the
most out of Nvidia's hardware.
In 2019, Nvidia acquired Mellanox Technologies for $6.9 billion. This is a company that
specializes in providing high-speed networking solutions for data centers, and when it acquired
this company, Nvidia strengthened its position in AI and high-performance computing. This deal
helps Nvidia improve the speed of AI model training, reducing its dependence on traditional data
centers that use CPUs.
And finally, the acquisition of Icera in 2011 for $367 million. Nvidia's goal of acquiring this
company was to develop wireless modem technology integrated into Tegra chips, however, with
fierce competition in the smartphone market, Nvidia had to close Icera in 2015.
In addition to successful deals, Nvidia also had a failed deal, which was to acquire ARM
Holdings for $ 40 billion in 2020-2022. Nvidia wanted to acquire this company to control its
own mobile chip and AI technology, reducing its dependence on outside partners. But concerns
about Nvidia's monopoly in the semiconductor industry, so this deal was blocked by regulatory
agencies.
From the above deals, we can see that Nvidia integrates horizontally for a number of reasons.
The first is to expand its technological and AI computing capabilities, promoting innovation.
That is shown by Nvidia focusing on acquiring companies with advanced technology such as
Mellanox, Run:ai and Deci AI, thereby helping Nvidia optimize data centers, improve AI model
training speed and expand the AI software ecosystem. The second reason is to strengthen its
competitive position, especially in the field of AI acceleration. Acquiring companies with
technological potential and then integrating them with the CUDA ecosystem makes Nvidia chips
the priority and top choice in AI research and high-performance computing. Next, Nvidia has
implemented a strategy to expand its global presence by acquiring companies in new locations.
Specifically, the acquisition of VinBrain in Vietnam (Southeast Asian market) or the acquisition
of companies in Israel. And finally, to reduce competition in key areas, Nvidia has been very
quick to acquire advanced technology solutions so that competitors can access these solutions.
To evaluate, most of NVidia's mergers up to now have had good results, except for Icera.
Therefore, in the future, Nvidia needs to be very careful in its M&A deals and needs to pay
attention to legal issues, especially monopoly in the industry to avoid causing trouble in the
future.
2. Is your company involved in any long-term cooperative relationship with suppliers or
buyers? If so, how are these relationships structured? Do you think that these relationships
add value to the company? Why?
Nvidia is a company with many long-term partnerships with both suppliers and customers.
First is the supplier partnership. Currently, Nvidia is cooperating with global and specialized
suppliers, highly skilled and skilled in the field of semiconductor and electronic components
manufacturing. And Nvidia often uses long-term contracts to ensure stable supply and reasonable
prices. Nvidia is depending on manufacturers to create its products. TSMC helps Nvidia produce
advanced GPUs with 5nm and 7nm processes. TSMC is making great strides in discussing and
researching the production of Blackwell AI chips for Nvidia at a new facility in Arizona, USA to
minimize risks caused by Sino-US political conflicts. Next, Samsung Electronics also supplies
Nvidia with GPUs for some product lines, helping Nvidia reduce its dependence on TSMC. For
GDDR and HBM memories for its GPUs, Nvidia has been supplied by Micron Technology, SK
Hynix and Samsung itself. For assembly, testing and packaging, Nvidia is cooperating with
Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry), Wistron and Fabrinet. To avoid political conflicts
between the US and China, Foxconn is also building a factory in Guadalajara, Mexico, thereby
maintaining long-term cooperation with Nvidia while minimizing related risks.
In addition, Nvidia also cooperates with semiconductor raw material suppliers. Sumco & Shin-
Etsu Chemical in Japan and GlobalWafers in Taiwan are suppliers of silicon wafers to TSMC
and Samsung to produce chips for Nvidia. For rare gases such as neon, xenon, argon, which are
very important in optical etching and semiconductor manufacturing, they are supplied by Air
Liquide in France, Linde in Germany and Taiyo Nippon Sanso in Japan. Companies such as
DuPont in the US, Merck KGaA in Germany and JSR Corporation in Japan are suppliers of
photolithography chemicals, dry etching agents and special chemical materials for chip
manufacturing. And especially important is ASML in the Netherlands, which is a supplier of
EUV photolithography machines to semiconductor manufacturers, from which chips can be
manufactured with advanced processes, producing chips with extremely high technology.
And Nvidia has built relationships with suppliers by signing long-term contracts to ensure stable
supply and always get the best price. Along with that, we can see Nvidia trying to diversify
different supply locations from the US, Mexico, Asia, Europe and soon Southeast Asia to avoid
the risk of being too dependent on a single supply location. However, in terms of high-quality
chip manufacturing, Nvidia still depends heavily on TSMC, which is a challenge that Nvidia
needs to overcome. And finally, it is the application of Quarterly Enterprise Assessment to assess
risks and always control quality from suppliers.
To be in a position with top products and always very high profit margins, cooperation with
Nvidia suppliers is very important. Thanks to cooperation with cheaper manufacturers, along
with large orders and long-term contracts, Nvidia's profit margins are always high, and also
thanks to large orders and diverse material supply sources, Nvidia's negotiating power is great,
when a supplier does not have a suitable price compared to the market or the product quality is
not guaranteed, with its position, Nvidia can easily find alternative sources. Along with that,
Nvidia will save a large amount of money to invest in production infrastructure when
cooperating with factories with expertise, high-quality human resources but reasonable prices.
Although companies that directly manufacture for Nvidia all have policies to invest in factories
in territories that are not affected by the political conflict between the US and China, political
conflicts along with the scarcity of raw materials for production in the semiconductor industry
are still inevitable risks for Nvidia in the future, so Nvidia still needs to always focus on
expanding its supply chain, always having new solutions at reasonable costs and long-term
sustainability.
This section will discuss Nvidia's relationship with its customers as Nvidia builds long-term
partnerships with large enterprises from bigtechs in the fields of cloud computing, autonomous
cars, AI and hardware manufacturing.
First is customers in the Chinese market, which contributes up to 20% of Nvidia's total revenue.
Major customers include Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Baidu Cloud - the top cloud service
companies in China, or ByteDance (TikTok) when using Nvidia GPUs to upgrade AI algorithms
to optimize content recommendations and video processing and companies such as Huawei,
Inspur, Lenovo, Sugon are server manufacturers that use Nvidia GPUs to develop AI systems
and data centers and supercomputers. China is a market with extremely high potential for
exploitation when there are many large corporations and governments willing to invest heavily in
high technology, which is why Nvidia has earned a huge profit here. However, with political
conflicts, and concerns about the rapid development of AI technology and high technology in AI
in China, the US has had to limit the high-quality chip options exported to China, thereby
affecting Nvidia a lot. In addition, domestic Chinese companies are also strict to be able to
produce their own chips, reducing dependence on Nvidia. Therefore, in this market, there is a lot
of potential but also many challenges.
Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) are also major customers of
Nvidia when they have used a lot of GPUs to develop their AI systems and data centers. These
companies are developing AI chips in-house, but AWS has committed to investing more than
$20 billion in Nvidia GPUs, showing that Nvidia's relationship with this customer is still very
good. In addition, the autonomous vehicle market is also a market that Nvidia participates in,
with Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW being major customers. Not only that, Nvidia is also
collaborating with Aurora Innovation and Continental to deploy self-driving cars with plans for
mass production in 2027. In terms of enterprise AI, Salesforce is currently integrating Nvidia AI
Enterprise into its ecosystem. And then there are companies using Nvidia GPUs in high-
performance computers and gaming laptops such as OEMs such as Dell, Lenovo, and HP.
Nvidia has used the following methods to build customer relationships.
The first is co-development innovation, where Nvidia has collaborated with its customers to
develop AI software according to the specific needs of each customer. For example, Nvidia has
integrated the DRIVE AI platform into Mercedes cars, adding over-the-air upgradeable
autonomous driving features, thereby continuously improving Mercedes cars without changing
Salesforce hardware. With India, Nvidia has collaborated to design domestic AI chips, from
which India can develop semiconductor technology and apply AI tools in defense. The purpose
of this strategy is not only to improve service quality, but also to make large customers attached
to its ecosystem, ensuring that NVidia's technology becomes the core platform of customers'
products, thereby helping to maintain customer loyalty to the company's services.
Next, a very important factor is the CUDA ecosystem. This is an important strategic card that
helps Nvidia build a strong relationship with customers and is a barrier for customers to switch to
other services when CUDA is free, supports rich documentation and tools, thereby helping
programmers easily learn and develop applications. Because it creates a very convenient
ecosystem and creates great value for users, millions of customers have depended on this
platform.
One program that Nvidia has used to build relationships with customers is the Nvidia Partner
Network (NPN). NPN is a program that brings together the company's business partners around
the world. NPN is structured according to each type of partner and area of expertise, making it
easy for customers to find the Nvidia-certified partner that best suits their needs. NPN partners
include a variety of solution providers, OEMs, distributors, system integrators, cloud services...
all of whom have in-depth knowledge and skills about Nvidia products to be able to solve
difficult problems for customers. And from NPN itself, Nvidia partners have been provided with
many specific benefits and support with the aim of enhancing the capabilities of those partners.
Specific benefits include in-depth training and certification, with industry-specific training
courses such as healthcare, finance or education, etc., along with learning paths. From there,
partners can proficiently use and master Nvidia products in their working environment. Next,
NPN also supports tools and resources such as access to Nvidia's partner portal, which has a
database of sales tools, technical documents and marketing campaigns. And finally, there are
financial incentives when Nvidia implements a fixed rebate mechanism for Elite partners when
selling key product categories (DGX, high-performance computing, graphics), as well as
quarterly sales bonuses and market development funds for partners who meet targets. These
incentives encourage partners to actively expand the market for Nvidia solutions. Thanks to the
NPN program, end customers indirectly benefit from a network of capable partners. Partners
who are well-trained and supported by Nvidia will provide higher quality consulting and
implementation services to customers. At the same time, Nvidia's certification of capabilities and
classification of partners in NPN helps customers feel secure in choosing the right partner with
the expertise to meet their business needs. In other words, NPN acts as a bridge, ensuring that
every customer in the market can access the right Nvidia solution through trusted partners,
thereby strengthening customer satisfaction and loyalty to the Nvidia ecosystem. Other
complementary strategies
And the final strategy is to support the developer and startup community. Nvidia always
organizes the world's largest GPU conference called GTC, where developers can learn and
update new technologies. Not only that, Nvidia also provides in-depth AI courses and Nvidia
Inception programs to support AI startups such as access to powerful hardware (DGX), a form of
technology credit. This strategy is a way for Nvidia to nurture a new generation of customers,
helping Nvidia dominate the AI market in the long term. Not only that, Nvidia also provides
comprehensive solutions in each field such as the automotive industry with NVidia DRIVE,
healthcare with Nvidia Clara or smart cities with Nvidia Metropolis, from which it can provide a
specific value to customers rather than just selling discrete hardware, thereby helping to retain
business customers.
With a large customer base and long-term cooperation contracts, Nvidia always has a stable
source of revenue and recurring cash flow. Along with that, Nvidia has expanded its service
market by cooperating with large companies in that industry such as Mercedes or Audi in the
field of self-driving cars, or Microsoft and Adobe in the field of AI graphics, thereby
diversifying its revenue. Along with that, customers in the cloud AI market have contributed
50% of Nvidia's revenue and Nvidia is always expanding its scale and position. However, Nvidia
needs to continuously innovate and develop itself to ensure its position in terms of technology
quality and product price, ensuring technological and ecosystem dependence from customers
when some large customers, Hyperscalers such as AWS, Google are developing internal chips to
reduce dependence on NVidia. And in the near future, Nvidia is also targeting new strategic
markets with strong growth potential, such as the markets in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, to
ensure its coverage everywhere.
B. Your company has restructured its corporate portfolio during the past decade.
1. Identify your company’s rationale for pursuing a restructuring strategy:
Over the past decade, from 2015 to 2020, Nvidia has restructured, citing a shift to AI and data
centers. NVIDIA has recognized the huge potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and data center
computing, so it has shifted its focus to these areas to drive long-term growth. During this period,
NVIDIA has gradually diversified away from the traditional gaming market, investing heavily in
AI hardware (Tesla/A100 GPUs) and data center solutions. As a result, data center revenue has
skyrocketed – in Q3 2020 alone, this segment increased by 162% year-on-year, setting a new
record. By 2022, data center revenue will surpass gaming for the first time, becoming the
company's largest source of revenue. The pivot to AI helps NVIDIA offset volatility from the
cryptocurrency market and solidify its leadership in the new technology sector. One of the
reasons Nvidia restructured was to address regulatory risks and acquisition restrictions (e.g., the
failed Arm deal). The $40 billion Arm acquisition announced in 2020 was canceled in early 2022
due to “insurmountable” regulatory challenges from US, UK, EU, and Chinese regulators.
Regulators were concerned that NVIDIA’s acquisition of Arm would impact competition and
Arm’s neutrality in the chip industry. Following this failure, NVIDIA shifted its focus to organic
growth and strategic partnerships (e.g., developing its own Arm “Grace” architecture CPUs for
data centers) rather than relying on large acquisitions. The company also focused on regulatory
compliance – for example, after being fined $5.5 million by the SEC for failing to disclose the
impact of cryptocurrency revenue in 2018, NVIDIA became more transparent about its
cryptocurrency contribution and reduced its reliance on this sensitive area. Next is the supply
chain optimization and fabless model (chip design but outsourced manufacturing), NVIDIA
restructured the supply chain to ensure production capacity and minimize the risk of shortages.
The company did not invest in building its own fab (chip factory) but tightened its relationship
with manufacturing partners such as TSMC and Samsung. Over the past decade, NVIDIA has
adjusted its supply strategy: shifting many orders from Samsung to TSMC and accepting billions
of dollars in advance to reserve a place at TSMC's advanced production line. This approach helps
NVIDIA be more proactive in its supply sources, avoiding a repeat of the severe chip shortage in
2020-2021. At the same time, the company optimized its inventory and product line. After the
"crypto fever" of 2017, NVIDIA learned from experience not to overproduce gaming GPUs,
thereby reducing inventory when unusual demand passes. Maintaining a flexible fabless model
but tightly managing the supply chain has contributed to NVIDIA’s operational efficiency and
adaptability to recent chip market volatility.
And the final reason is divesting from non-core areas. NVIDIA is willing to give up non-core
businesses to focus resources on core areas. A typical example is in 2015, NVIDIA withdrew
from the mobile chip market when it announced the closure of the Icera wireless modem division
it acquired in 2011, due to “reshaping its strategy to focus on high-growth opportunities in
gaming, automotive, and cloud computing (deep learning)”. This divestment allowed NVIDIA to
focus R&D resources on GPUs and AI, instead of spreading them to modem/smartphone areas,
which are not its strengths. Similarly, NVIDIA reduced its investment in the cryptocurrency
market (which was seen as a short-term opportunity) to prioritize longer-term areas. These bold
moves are part of a restructuring strategy aimed at keeping NVIDIA focused on areas with the
most sustainable growth potential.
2. Pick one industry that your company has exited during the past ten years.
One industry that NVIDIA has retreated from in the past 10 years is cryptocurrency mining,
exiting the crypto mining market. NVIDIA once benefited greatly from the crypto mining boom,
but over the past decade the company has been proactive in distancing itself from the industry.
NVIDIA GPUs were popular for mining Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies, leading to
explosive sales in 2017 and 2020–2021. However, the company found the market too volatile:
After the 2017 boom, demand plummeted in 2018, leaving NVIDIA with a large inventory of
unsold GPUs and its stock falling 17% in a single day. CEO Jensen Huang admitted that “the
post-crypto pain lasted longer than expected” as cryptocurrency prices fell, leading to a large
amount of unsold GPUs piling up at distributors. This erratic market volatility was a major factor
in NVIDIA’s decision to gradually limit its participation in the coin mining sector. There are
many factors that led to Nvidia's decision to withdraw from the cryptocurrency industry, beyond
supply and demand fluctuations. First, there is the increasingly strict legal regulations -
regulators are concerned about the downside of cryptocurrencies. For example, China banned
Bitcoin mining in 2021, and in the US, NVIDIA was fined by the SEC for not being transparent
about miner revenue. This put pressure on the company to reduce its involvement in the area
with many legal risks. Next, when Ethereum - the currency with the most GPUs - officially
switched to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism in September 2022, it ended the need to mine
Ethereum with GPUs. After the "The Merge" event, mining with graphics cards was almost
unprofitable, forcing miners to turn off their machines or switch to a few small coins with less
value. And finally, there is the surplus of GPUs on the market. When cryptocurrencies
plummeted, "mining farms" fled, leading to a wave of selling old GPUs on the secondary market
and increasing inventory. The market quickly shifted from GPU shortage to oversupply after
2022 when NVIDIA admitted to having excess RTX 3000 inventory due to “plummeting”
demand from miners. These factors made continuing to chase crypto profits too risky compared
to the benefits, prompting NVIDIA to withdraw from the crypto mining industry.
3. Identify your company’s strategy for exiting this particular industry. Do you think that
this was the best exit strategy to use? Justify your answer.
Nvidia's exit strategy began with limiting the mining performance of GPUs (Lite Hash Rate -
LHR). This was an important step for NVIDIA with the technique of "throttling" the mining
performance of mainstream graphics cards. Starting in early 2021, NVIDIA integrated an LHR
limiter on GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs, automatically halving the Ethereum mining speed. The
goal was to make gaming cards less attractive to miners, thereby prioritizing supply to gamers -
"we want to ensure GeForce GPUs get to gamers" NVIDIA stated when introducing this feature.
For example, the RTX 3060 model launched in 2021 was intentionally limited in mining
performance right in the driver. By May 2021, the company expanded LHR to most newly
produced RTX 3080, 3070, 3060 Ti models. Although this limit was later partially bypassed by
miners, it represents NVIDIA’s attempt to reduce the appeal of GPUs to miners, preventing “sold
out” for purposes other than gaming.
In parallel with LHR, NVIDIA completely separated its product line for miners. In February
2021, the company introduced NVIDIA CMP, a dedicated GPU for cryptocurrency mining (no
video output, optimized performance/watt for mining). The intention was to serve miners with a
separate solution so they would not compete for gaming cards. Initially, CMP contributed
significant revenue (about $155 million in Q1 2021). However, when the crypto market
collapsed, CMP revenue “closed to zero” in early 2022. NVIDIA then quietly stopped updating
the CMP line when demand disappeared. The CMP’s demise showed that the company
determined that cryptocurrency mining was no longer a target market; They are willing to
abandon this product to focus resources on GPUs for AI and datacenters - which have a more
promising future.
One of the strategic steps to retreat is to liquidate excess GPU inventory from the crypto craze
while adjusting production plans to match real demand and focus on AI/datacenters. NVIDIA
proactively reduced the supply of gaming GPUs to the market when it realized that graphics
cards were "piling up in warehouses" after the crypto bubble. The company accepted inventory
costs (which increased many times in fiscal year 2019) to sell old Pascal/Turing inventory,
avoiding dumping new products. In parallel, NVIDIA reoriented resources to the data center and
AI segments, for example, boosting the production of A100 and H100 GPUs for AI computing,
and investing in hardware development such as NVIDIA DGX systems, DRIVE autonomous
vehicles, etc. The company also completed the acquisition of Mellanox (2020) to strengthen the
datacenter network segment. As a result, when crypto demand disappears in 2022, NVIDIA still
grows thanks to the AI investment wave - data center revenue sets a new record of $3.8 billion in
Q1/2022, up ~80% YoY. The shift in focus to AI and cloud has absorbed most of the resources
that used to serve the crypto market, showing that NVIDIA is determined to restructure its
product portfolio in a way that is beneficial in the long term.
In general, NVIDIA's withdrawal from the cryptocurrency mining field is considered a timely
and correct move. First, it saves the company from depending on an unstable market, if it
continues to follow the coin mining craze, NVIDIA's revenue can "bloom and fade" and suffer
major shocks (as seen in 2018). Second, this strategy protects NVIDIA's core market - the
gaming community and enterprise customers. The LHR limitation and the CMP launch (albeit
short-term) show that NVIDIA values the experience of traditional customers (gamers) and is
interested in maintaining a stable distribution channel, rather than dumping everything to miners
in the short term. Some argue that NVIDIA may have missed out on huge revenue during the
crypto boom, but that benefit is temporary and entails high inventory risks, legal sanctions (on
financial disclosure), and image damage with long-term customers. Meanwhile, the choice to
focus on AI/datacenter has turned NVIDIA into the world's most valuable chip company in 2023.
It can be seen that "the shift from crypto demand to AI and datacenter has demonstrated
NVIDIA's resilience and strategic vision". Thanks to restructuring, NVIDIA has built a solid
foundation in high-growth areas, instead of chasing short-term, volatile profits. This is
considered the optimal strategy, helping the company maintain sustainable growth momentum
and a leading position in the long term.
4. In general, do you think that exiting from this industry has been in the company’s best
interest?
Overall, we can see the benefits and long-term impact of this decision for Nvidia.
By escaping the “vortex” of the cryptocurrency market, NVIDIA's financial situation becomes
more stable and easier to control and predict. Previously, the company's GPU revenue fluctuated
strongly with crypto prices - when the market collapsed in 2018, revenue from PC customers
(mainly miners) decreased by nearly 40%. Now, after restructuring, the revenue related to
cryptocurrencies accounts for a negligible proportion (almost 0% in 2022). NVIDIA avoids
extreme oversupply or shortages, thanks to focusing on segments with more sustainable demand.
Gross profit margins are also less affected by inventory write-offs like in the previous “crypto
pain”.
In the long term, NVIDIA’s revenue mix is now spread across multiple applications (AI, data
centers, autonomous cars, etc.) rather than relying on a “single commodity” of GPUs for miners.
This reduces market risk and creates financial stability – the company can ride out an industry
downturn without severely impacting the entire business.
The decision to exit crypto allows NVIDIA to reallocate resources – especially engineering
talent and manufacturing capacity – to strategic spearheads. The past decade has seen NVIDIA
dominate the AI chip market with GPUs like the V100, A100, and H100 becoming the
foundation for every AI data center from major tech companies. The company is also tapping
into new opportunities such as products for autonomous vehicles, supercomputers, and recently
the Omniverse virtual universe platform, all of which have been invested in and developed. The
move away from the mining market has allowed NVIDIA to lead the AI revolution – as
evidenced by the global rush to equip data centers with NVIDIA GPUs for the 2023 general AI
wave. The company’s revenue has increased from $4 billion (2013) to $27 billion (2023) and its
market capitalization has surpassed $1 trillion – the result of a strong focus on key areas with
great potential. It can be said that restructuring helps NVIDIA “focus firepower” in the right
places, maximizing its competitive advantage in AI and high-performance computing.
Finally, escaping the “cryptocurrency fever” has helped NVIDIA raise its reputation in the eyes
of regulators and investors. Instead of being associated with a skeptical market (due to its
involvement in speculative bubbles and cryptocurrency scams), NVIDIA is now better known as
a pillar of the AI and cloud computing industry. This resonates with regulators, who are
concerned about the negative impacts of cryptocurrencies (such as fraud, energy consumption).
In fact, NVIDIA has learned from the SEC's 2022 fine for crypto disclosure, the company is now
more transparent and focused on government-backed initiatives (e.g., developing AI
supercomputers, collaborating on autonomous vehicles). For investors, this exit strategy is all the
more welcome. NVIDIA removes an unpredictable volatility factor, replacing it with a growth
story based on AI and data centers - an area where investors believe in real and long-term
potential. As a result, NVIDIA stock becomes more attractive to institutional investors. The
company also avoids the risk of being classified as a "meme stock" that follows crypto, instead
becoming a prominent name in the high-end technology category.
In short, the decision to restructure and withdraw from the cryptocurrency mining sector has
brought many long-term benefits to NVIDIA, from financial stability, focusing on strategic
development to enhancing reputation and market confidence - creating the premise for the
company's brilliant success in the current AI era.
 References:

1. Vengattil, M., & Nellis, S. (2018). "Crypto hangover" hammers Nvidia's outlook, shares
drop 17 percent
2. Huang, J. (2015). NVIDIA to Wind Down Icera Modem OperationsMukherjee, S., &
Panchadar, A. (2018). Nvidia's upbeat forecast powered by data center, cryptocurrency
demand
3. Prentice, C., & Singh, K. (2022). Nvidia to pay $5.5 million penalty for inadequate
disclosures about cryptomining
4. Horwitz, J. (2022). Relief and challenges for chipmakers as Nvidia-Arm megadeal
collapses
5. Kan, M. (2022). GPU Mining for Ethereum Ends as 'The Merge' Completes
6. Kan, M. (2022). Nvidia Confirms 'LHR' Mining Limiter for GPUs Has Been Eliminated
7. Ashraf, A. (2022). Nvidia’s Crypto Mining Chip Revenue Now ‘Nominal’
8. Johnston, M. (2020). Nvidia Earnings: What Happened with NVDA (Q3 2021)
9. InspiNews. (2023). Inspiring Story of Nvidia and Its Growth Over the Last Decade
10. Witt, T. (2024, June 18). NVIDIA’s Comprehensive Tech Stack, Ecosystem Partnerships
Solidify Position Atop AI Pioneers. Cloud Wars.
11. Salesforce. (2024, September 17). Salesforce and NVIDIA Forge Strategic Collaboration
to Advance AI Agent Innovation [Press release]. Salesforce Investor Relations (via
Business Wire).
12. NVIDIA. (2020, June 23). Mercedes-Benz and NVIDIA to Build Software-Defined
Computing Architecture for Automated Driving Across Future Fleet [Press release].
NVIDIA Newsroom.
13. Lemonde, S. (2022, March 23). NVIDIA Inception Introduces New and Updated Benefits
for Startup Members to Accelerate Computing. NVIDIA Blog.
14. Legenvre, H., & Autio, E. (2024, November 26). NVIDIA: Harnessing Open Innovation
to Promote User Lock-in. The European Business Review.
15. Hsiao, J. (2024, October 22). Nvidia reportedly to co-develop custom chip tailored for
India with Indian partners. DigiTimes Asia.
16. Da Costa, A. (2020, August 17). NVIDIA Partner Network Expands, Adds New Benefits.
NVIDIA Blog.
17. EMFRM. (2024). Financial Impact of Cryptocurrency Market on Semiconductor
Industry. Retrieved from EMFRM Report
18. Hivelr. (2025). NVIDIA (NVDA) - Porter’s Five Forces Industry and Competition
Analysis. Retrieved from Hivelr
19. NVIDIA AI Revolution. (2025). Strategic Evolution of NVIDIA’s Business Model.
Retrieved from Breno Niero
20. SiliconANGLE. (2024). NVIDIA's Strategic Vision in AI and Cloud Computing.
Retrieved from SiliconANGLE
21. SSRN. (2024). NVIDIA's Financial and Market Shift. Retrieved from SSRN Report
22. Tom’s Hardware. (2023). First China-designed gaming GPU faces challenges. Retrieved
from Tom's Hardware
23. Foxconn, the notable electronics manufacturer from Taiwan, is constructing the world's
largest factory dedicated to producing Nvidia's advanced Blackwell AI servers in
 Guadalajara, Mexico. (2025, October 17). Financial Times. Retrieved from
https://www.ft.com/content/dded14c5-673f-430e-819b-0e8780541a82
24. TSMC is reportedly in discussions with Nvidia to produce the latter's Blackwell AI chips
at TSMC's new facility in Arizona. (2025, August 15). Investopedia. Retrieved from
https://www.investopedia.com/tsmc-in-talks-to-produce-blackwell-ai-chip-for-nvidia-in-
arizona-report-says-8756518
25. Nvidia has entered a long-term strategic partnership with Aurora and Continental to
deploy driverless trucks at scale. (2025, January 10). Nvidia Investor Relations. Retrieved
from https://investor.nvidia.com/news/press-release-details/2025/Toyota-Aurora-and-
Continental-Join-Growing-List-of-NVIDIA-Partners-Rolling-Out-Next-Generation-
Highly-Automated-and-Autonomous-Vehicle-Fleets/
26. Nvidia and Salesforce announced a strategic collaboration to advance AI agent
innovation. (2024, September 17). Salesforce Newsroom. Retrieved from
https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2024/09/17/nvidia-ai-agent-partnership/

27. Barron’s. (2025, January 9). Nvidia Stock Had a Bright Start to 2025. Why Investors
Face a Fresh Fear. Retrieved from https://www.barrons.com/articles/nvidia-stock-biden-
ai-exports-china-765c8b24
28. Reuters. (2025, January 13). Nvidia says new rule will weaken US leadership in AI.
Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/nvidia-says-
new-rule-will-weaken-us-leadership-ai-2025-01-13/
29. VietnamNet. (2024, December 20). Nvidia surprises with acquisition of VinBrain from
Vingroup. Retrieved from https://vietnamnet.vn/nvidia-bat-ngo-mua-lai-vinbrain-cua-
vingroup-2349288.html
30. VnEconomy. (2024, April 5). Nvidia acquires GPU software orchestration startup
Run:ai, marking first M&A deal since 2020. Retrieved from
https://vneconomy.vn/techconnect/nvidia-mua-lai-startup-dieu-phoi-phan-mem-gpu-
runai-danh-dau-thuong-vu-ma-dau-tien-cua-hang-ke-tu-nam-2020.htm
31. VnExpress. (2024, May 10). Why Nvidia’s $40 billion ARM acquisition collapsed.
Retrieved from https://vnexpress.net/ly-do-vu-sap-nhap-nvidia-arm-sup-do-4425461.html
32. The Leader. (2024, October 15). Vietnam after Nvidia’s investment effect. Retrieved from
https://theleader.vn/viet-nam-sau-hieu-ung-dau-tu-cua-nvidia-d38496.html
33. VnEconomy. (2024, May 30). Nvidia aggressively acquires and merges despite strict
regulations. Retrieved from https://vneconomy.vn/techconnect/nvidia-ra-suc-mua-lai-va-
sap-nhap-bat-chap-cac-lenh-giam-sat-chang-chit.htm
34. Nvidia’s AI Revolution: A Comprehensive Strategic Analysis (2nd Edition FY2025).
(2025). Nvidia’s acquisition strategy and AI expansion.
35. Hivelr. (2025). NVIDIA (NVDA) - Porter’s Five Forces Industry and Competition
Analysis (2nd Edition).
36. Reuters. (2024, April 5). Nvidia acquires GPU software orchestration startup Run:ai,
marking first M&A deal since 2020. Retrieved from
https://www.reuters.com/technology/nvidia-acquires-runai-2024
37. Barron’s. (2025, January 9). Nvidia’s Failed ARM Deal and Future Expansion
Challenges. Retrieved from https://www.barrons.com/articles/nvidia-stock-biden-ai-
exports-china-765c8b24