Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Billions Served: NVIDIA Merlin Helps Fuel Clicks for Online Giants

18/01/2022

Online commerce has rocketed to trillions of dollars worldwide in the past decade, serving billions of consumers. Behind the scenes of this explosive growth in online sales is personalization driven by recommender engines.

Recommenders make shopping deeply personalized. While searching for products on e-commerce sites, they find you. Or suggestions can just appear. This wildly delightful corner of the internet is driven by ever more massive datasets and models.

NVIDIA Merlin is the rocket fuel of recommenders. Boosting training and inference, it enables businesses of all types to better harness data to build recommenders accelerated by NVIDIA GPUs.

The stakes are higher than ever for online businesses. Online sales in 2021 were expected to reach nearly $5 trillion worldwide, according to eMarketer, up nearly 17 percent from the prior year.

On some of the world's largest online sites, even a 1 percent gain in relevance accuracy of recommendations can yield billions more sales.

Investment in recommender systems has become one of the biggest competitive advantages of internet giants today.

The market for recommenders is expected to reach $15.13 billion by 2026, up from $2.12 billion in 2020, according to Mordor Intelligence. The largest and fastest growing segment of the market for recommender engines is in the Asia Pacific region, according to the research firm.

But an industry challenge is that improved relevance requires more data and processing. This data consists of trillions of user-product interactions - clicks, views, - on billions of products and consumer profiles.

Data of this scale can take days to train models. Yet the faster you can spin out new models informed by more data, the better your relevance.

The Merlin collection of models, methods, and libraries, includes tools for building deep learning-based systems capable of handling terabytes of data that can provide better predictions and increase clicks.

SNAP Taps Merlin and GPUs for Inference Upside U.S. digital advertising is expected to reach $191.1 billion in 2021, up 25.5 percent from the year before, according to eMarketer.

Snap, parent company to social media app Snapchat, is based in Santa Monica, Calif., and has more than 300 million daily active users. It creates ad revenue from its social photo and video messaging service.

We will continue to focus on delivering strong results for our advertising partners and innovating to expand the capabilities of our platform and better serve our community, said Snap CEO Evan Spiegel in its third-quarter earnings statement.

The technical hurdle for Snap is that it seeks to continue to develop its workload's higher-cost ranking models and expand into more complex models while reducing costs.

The company used NVIDIA GPUs and Merlin to boost its content ranking capabilities.

Snap used NVIDIA GPUs and Merlin software to improve machine learning inference cost efficiency by 50 percent and decrease serving latency by 2x, providing the compute headroom to experiment and deploy heavier, more accurate ad and content ranking models, said Nima Khajehnouri, VP of engineering at Snap.

Tencent Boosts Model Training With Merlin's HugeCTR Entertainment giant Tencent, which operates the enormously popular messaging service WeChat and payments platform WeChat Pay, is China's largest company by market capitalization.

Its engineers need to rapidly iterate on models for its advertising recommendation system, putting increasing demands on its training performance.

The advertising business is a relatively important business inside Tencent and the recommendation system is used to increase the overall advertising revenue, said Xiangting Kong, expert engineer at Tencent.

The problem is that accuracy of advertising recommendation can only be improved by training more sample data, including more sample features, but this leads to longer training times that affect model update frequency.

HugeCTR, as a recommendation training framework, is integrated into the advertising recommendation training system to make the update frequency of model training faster, and more samples can be trained to improve online effects, he said.

After the training model performance is improved, more data can be trained to improve the accuracy of the model, increasing advertising revenue, he added.

Meituan Reduces Costs With NVIDIA A100 GPUs Meituan's business is at a crowded intersection of food, entertainment and on-demand services, among its 200 service categories. The Chinese internet giant has more than 667 million active users and 8.3 million active merchants.

Jun Huang, a senior technical expert at Meituan, said that if his team can greatly improve performance, it usually prefers to train more samples and more complex models.

The problem for Meituan was that as its models became more and more complex, it became difficult to optimize the training framework deeply, said Huang.

We are working on integrating NVIDIA HugeCTR into our training system based on A100 GPUs. The cost is also greatly reduced. This is a preliminary optimization result, and there is still much room to optimize in the future, he said.

Meituan recently reported its average number of transactions per transacting users increased to 32.8 for the trailing 12 months of the second quarter of 2021, compared with 25.7 for the trailing 12 months of the second quarter of 2020.

Learn more about NVIDIA Merlin. Learn more about NVIDIA Triton.
LINK: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2022/01/18/nvidia-merlin-helps-fuel-clic...
See more stories from nvidia

North America Stories

28/01/2026

2026 Sundance Film Festival Reveals Short Film Program Award Winners

Top L-R: The Liars, Jazz Infernal, Living with a Visionary Second Row L-R: Paper Trail, The Baddest Speechwriter of All, Crisis Actor Third Row: The Boys and ...

28/01/2026

Aussies' love of travel sees 12% surge in ad investment according to Nielsen

Airlines, cruise and tour operators double down on ad spend as Australians' prioritise travel Sydney January 28, 2026 - New Nielsen Ad Intel data shows a...

28/01/2026

Daniel Finn Joins LABF in Philanthropy Role

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/01/2026

Tegna Expands Local News Offering with Revamped Mobile App

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/01/2026

Marshall Electronics Unveils CV420 27X UHD Camera at ISE...

Marshall Electronics launches the CV420-27X, its next-generation ultra-high-definition (UHD) IP camera, at ISE 2026 (Stand 4N900). Engineered for modern IP-base...

28/01/2026

TVM Selects Grass Valley Technology for OB Truck Refurbis...

Grass Valley has announced that Television Mobiles Ltd. (TVM), one of Europe's leading independent outside broadcast providers, has carried out a major refu...

28/01/2026

FOR-A to show cutting edge technology at FOMEX 2026

AI, graphics and virtual software power new production capabilities FOR-A is bringing remarkable new technologies to FOMEX, the Future of Media Exhibition (ex...

28/01/2026

Riedel and Media Tailor Deliver Unified Broadcast and AV...

Continuing a longstanding collaboration, Riedel Communications and Nordic media technology company Media Tailor have once again joined forces to deliver a state...

28/01/2026

Pebble appoints Paul Nagle-Smith to drive fulfilment

Pebble has appointed Paul Nagle-Smith as vice president for customer fulfilment, strengthening its senior leadership focus on customer delivery and operational ...

28/01/2026

TV Azteca Strengthens Disaster Recovery Capabilities with...

Cloud playout solutions provider, Veset has announced that leading Mexican broadcaster, TV Azteca is using Veset Nimbus on AWS as a disaster recovery (DR) playo...

28/01/2026

MVP kicks off major football tournament with a tactical s...

Ensuring it can keep pace with a rapidly evolving live sports market, Balkan broadcast facility provider MVP Most Valuable Production has upgraded its flags...

28/01/2026

Akamai and Yospace Deliver Seamless Personalized Ad Exper...

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the cloud solutions provider that powers and protects life online, and Yospace, the leader in dynamic ad insertion tec...

28/01/2026

Clear-Com Empowers Reykjavik City Theatre with New Upgrad...

The renowned Reykjavik City Theatre (RCT) recently underwent a major intercom system upgrade using Clear-Com solutions. This milestone project utilizes Clear-C...

28/01/2026

OpenDrives Announces New Funding, Appoints Trevor Morgan CEO

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/01/2026

AWARN Alliance Backs ATSC Sunset, NextGen TV Security Measures

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/01/2026

More Than Two Dozen Groups Tell FCC to Reject Nexstar-Tegna Deal

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/01/2026

Boston Conservatory Orchestra Premieres a New Piano Concerto by Peter and Leonardo Dugan

Boston Conservatory Orchestra Premieres a New Piano Concerto by Peter and Leonar...

28/01/2026

The Wait Is Over: Teaser Trailer Drops for 'Jo Nesbo's Detective Hole'

Back to All News The Wait Is Over: Teaser Trailer Drops for Jo Nesbo's Dete...

28/01/2026

Netflix Announces a Fictional Miniseries Inspired by the Marta del Castillo Case

Back to All News Netflix Announces a Fictional Miniseries Inspired by the Marta del Castillo Case Entertainment 28 January 2026 GlobalSpain Link copied to ...

28/01/2026

Netflix Announces Santiago Mitre's New Film Starring Vernica Llins and Peter Lanzani

Back to All News Netflix Announces Santiago Mitres New Film Starring Ver nica L...

28/01/2026

Netflix Unveils the Teaser Trailer for 'Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine'

Back to All News Netflix Unveils the Teaser Trailer for Berlin and the Lady wit...

27/01/2026

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Sundance Institute Name Winners of Science-In-Film Initiative's Feature Film Prize and Artist Grants

L-R: Jonathan Cuchacovich, Sonia Kennebeck, Alan Fischer, Daeil Kim, Andrew Sta...

27/01/2026

Hubbard Broadcasting Renews Partnership With Nielsen in Albany and Albuquerque-Santa Fe Markets

Nielsen will continue to drive growth and provide local audience measurement in...

27/01/2026

Pebble Adds Paul Nagle-Smith as VP of Customer Fulfillment

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Pinterest Bluesky Email...

27/01/2026

Study: Top Reason for Cancelling Streaming Service Is Programming

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Pinterest Bluesky Email...

27/01/2026

U.K.'s Digital TV Group Taps Leslie Mackenzie as Chair

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Pinterest Bluesky Email...

27/01/2026

Amagi becomes the first cloud-native SaaS company offerin...

Amagi Media Labs Limited, the only cloud-native SaaS provider offering end-to-end solutions across live production, content preparation, distribution, and monet...

27/01/2026

Miri Technologies Launches V410 Live 4K Video Encoder-Dec...

Miri Technologies Inc. today unveiled its V410 live 4K video encoder/decoder for streaming, IP-based production workflows and AV-over-IP distribution. Designed ...

27/01/2026

UML Tsongas Center Upgrades with Ikegami UHK-X600 Cameras

The Paul E. Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell in Massachusetts has chosen Ikegami cameras for incorporation into its broadcast-quality television production facili...

27/01/2026

SipRadius provides simplicity and security for AV content...

SipRadius, specialists in secure, low latency media transport, will show the pro AV community its end-to-end solution for high quality content distribution and ...

27/01/2026

Hiltron to Showcase its Full Range of Satcom Solutions at...

Hiltron will highlight the fruits of its 45-plus years of experience in satellite communications system integration and product development at the annual GovSat...

27/01/2026

Broadcast and pro AV professionals cut costs and single-u...

Klvr will demonstrate how its Charger Pro solution is delivering cost reduction and performance benefits for live entertainment and pro AV markets at ISE 2026 (...

27/01/2026

Amino Showcases Single Player Digital Signage and Enterpr...

Amino, a global media technology leader in enterprise video and digital signage, today announced that its Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2026 booth (4N700) wil...

27/01/2026

ANI Expands Strategic Partnership with LiveU

ANI, India's leading news agency and a major content provider across the Asia Pacific region, today announced a significant expansion of its long standing p...

27/01/2026

VisualOn and The Channel Store Demonstrate Up to 65 Perce...

Independent analysis confirms faster encoding, lower CPU usage, and improved perceptual quality compared to CBR and CRF VisualOn, a leader in multimedia playba...

27/01/2026

EVS Officially Launches eShop

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Pinterest Bluesky Email...

27/01/2026

Miri to Showcase New V410 Video Encoder/Decoder at ISE 2026

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Pinterest Bluesky Email...

27/01/2026

FCC Settles Two Investigations, Renews Three TV Station Licenses

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Pinterest Bluesky Email...

27/01/2026

UML Tsongas Center Upgrades to Ikegami UHK-X600 Cameras

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Pinterest Bluesky Email...

27/01/2026

'That Night' Premiering on Netflix March 13

Back to All News That Night Premiering on Netflix March 13 Entertainment 27 January 2026 GlobalSpain Link copied to clipboard DOWNLOAD THE KEY ART DOWNLO...

27/01/2026

Netflix Kicks Off 15-Year Anniversary Celebrations in Brazil With New Office and Visit From co-CEO Greg Peters

Back to All News Netflix Kicks Off 15-Year Anniversary Celebrations in Brazil W...

27/01/2026

When It Feels Real, Is It Still a Lie? The Art of Sarah' Premieres February 13

Back to All News When It Feels Real, Is It Still a Lie? The Art of Sarah' ...

27/01/2026

That Night premiering on Netflix March 13

Back to All News That Night premiering on Netflix March 13 Entertainment 27 January 2026 GlobalSpain Link copied to clipboard DOWNLOAD THE KEY ART DOWNLO...

27/01/2026

Netflix Revealed the Future of Mexican Stories Coming in 2026

Back to All News Netflix Revealed the Future of Mexican Stories Coming in 2026 Entertainment 27 January 2026 GlobalMexico Link copied to clipboard Among t...

27/01/2026

What's Next on Netflix from Japan: Expanding the Possibilities of Storytelling in 2026

Back to All News What's Next on Netflix from Japan: Expanding the Possibili...

27/01/2026

FOR-A to show cutting edge technology at FOMEX 2026

AI, graphics and virtual software power new production capabilities...

26/01/2026

Amagi Lists on Indian Stock Exchanges

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Pinterest Bluesky Email...

26/01/2026

FCC Releases Tentative Agenda for Jan. 29 Open Meeting

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Pinterest Bluesky Email...