Reports warn Nvidia's next-generation 7nm data center GPUs face potential production delays.

Nvidia's 7nm GPUs aimed at data center usage have been delayed, according to analyst Chris Caso from Raymond James Financial. As highlighted by Seeking Alpha, Caso notes that he hasn't observed the typical "channel activity" that would normally represent the build-up to a product launch. The analyst believes the 7nm data center GPU product is still coming, but has been pushed back to Q1 or Q2 of 2020.

These delayed data center offerings are heavyweight GPUs targeted at high-performance computing. Historically, Nvidia's data center products have preceded the launch of next-generation consumer graphics cards. The pattern is evident in past releases: Volta-based Tesla GPUs followed on from Pascal cards in May 2017, with Nvidia's Titan V subsequently emerging in December 2017 using Volta, and then Turing-based graphics cards followed in September 2018.

Previous speculation had indicated that Nvidia might release its next-gen consumer GPUs as soon as the first half of 2020. However, if the 7nm data center GPUs have indeed been delayed by a quarter or two, this could potentially push the consumer products further out as well. Following the historical pattern, a Q1 or Q2 2020 data center launch would align the consumer graphics card release toward the end of 2020 or perhaps even 2021.

This timeline presents a significant opportunity for competitors. AMD's "Nvidia killer" could come out unchallenged in the middle of 2020, which may explain recent rumors and chatter theorizing that Nvidia could introduce a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Super as a stopgap measure to combat the rival high-end offering. As ever, these projections should be treated with appropriate skepticism given their speculative nature.