Nvidia's annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC) event will not feature a keynote address this year. Instead, Nvidia will make a series of news announcements on Tuesday, March 24, including information that was scheduled to be shared at the keynote; it remains to be seen if they will include details about Nvidia's next-generation GeForce cards.

The change in plans comes a week after Nvidia announced that it was moving GTC to a digital-only event due to the coronavirus outbreak; Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang was scheduled to give a keynote address, but it was not in front of a physical audience, but only via live stream, it was only to be done through a stream. This is no longer true. [Amid the worsening coronavirus situation, the company announced earlier this month that it would be moving most of its conferences to a digital platform. The company believes that its ability to produce and deliver digital keynotes will be challenged as public health uncertainty continues," Nvidia said.

Nvidia plans to host other digital events, including live webinars, recorded talks and panels, and training. However, everything that was scheduled to be announced at the keynote will instead be announced in a press release.

Rumors are flying that Nvidia will announce details of its next-generation Ampere GPU at GTC, especially since AMD will announce its next-generation Navi GPU later this year. If such was the plan, and I don't know if it is true or not, I doubt Nvidia would keep it to a press release.

A lot is at stake for Ampere; AMD recently announced some details of the RDNA 2 architecture that will underpin the next version of Navi, with claims of 50% better performance per watt compared to RDNA 1. AMD also revealed that it intends to compete at the extreme high-end by releasing a "top-of-stack GPU with uncompromised 4K performance." In other words, they are going after Nvidia's throne.

I have to believe that Nvidia is preparing for increased competition from AMD and possibly Intel, which is entering the discrete GPU space this year. This makes this year's GTC keynote particularly interesting.

All of this is secondary to health concerns; those of us who cover the hardware scene for PCGamer are keeping an eye on what Nvidia will announce later this month.