Walmart wants to fight Amazon with Nvidia GPU and AI

　　Not long ago, Walmart was the undisputed king in the retail industry. However, e-commerce has changed this landscape.

　　Amazon has an increasing share of the retail market over the past few years. Walmart has always been catching up with Amazon in terms of online sales, but now it seems the retail giant is ready to compete with Amazon, and of course it needs the help of Nvidia and artificial intelligence (AI).

　　In a recent report, Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry revealed that Walmart will build a massive data center to accommodate its cloud computing devices and conduct large-scale in-depth research on deep learning.

　　Walmart will also use Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs) to build a "GPU farm" to power its cloud platform, although Walmart's cloud computing business is currently only 1/10 of Amazon's.

　　Never underestimate competition

　　Amazon has invested heavily in the field of deep learning, a technology that uses computers to simulate the human brain to rebuild our learning capabilities. These complex algorithms can identify patterns and discern differences when processing large amounts of seemingly unrelated data. This will lead to progress in image processing, speech recognition and natural language processing. It is Amazon that uses these technologies to develop the smart voice assistant Alexa to help support products such as smart speaker Echo and integrate these features into Amazon's cloud computing business AWS.

　　It also allows the company to process huge consumer data, providing useful advice for online shoppers. Amazon 's technology puts Walmart at a disadvantage.

　　Sleeping on the same bed with competitors

　　Walmart is a long-time AWS user, but as tensions between the two companies continue to escalate, the company is always looking to break those connections and process their internal data internally, rather than enriching its competitors’ vaults. Walmart's efforts to enter the deep learning field will provide it with the necessary technical support as the company is working to expand its digital business and compete with Amazon's local market.

　　Walmart has made a series of high-profile acquisitions in the network space and has added Jet.com, Modcloth, and Bonobos to its alliance. Choudhury pointed out that in the next six months, Walmart will fully put deep neural networks into application and will create its own Nvidia GPU cluster on Walmart Cloud. Nvidia's GPU is the basis for many AI technology advancements in recent years. Scientists have found that the processing power of allowing GPUs to render images in video games is also suitable for digital operations required for deep learning.

　　Having strong deep learning capabilities will allow Walmart to benefit from customer data without having to share data with competitors it is trying to beat. Nvidia will also benefit from it. Its stock rose 165% last year, thanks to its GPU application in the deep learning field. In the latest quarter, the company's revenue from AI data centers increased by 175% year-on-year.

　　The e-commerce wave

　　E-commerce has always claimed that its revenue share is increasing. In the second quarter of 2017, U.S. online sales increased to $111.5 billion, but still accounted for only 8.9% of total U.S. retail sales. Walmart doesn't want to hand over the market to Amazon, and recent moves suggest that the retailer is repositioning itself to better compete in the digital space.

　　Adopting deep learning technology will allow Walmart to leverage customer data from different businesses, putting the company in a more advantageous position to compete with strong rivals. Although Walmart is catching up with its rivals in the network field, Choudhury suggests that investors should not underestimate the technical wisdom of Walmart software developers, after all, they have a history of disrupting the retail industry, creating inventory and logistics innovation, which sounds like a wise advice!

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