Taipei: In a two-hour presentation in Taiwan, Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang unveiled a new batch of products and services tied to artificial intelligence, looking to capitalize on a frenzy that has made his company the world’s most valuable chipmaker.
The wide-ranging lineup includes a new robotics design, gaming capabilities, advertising services and a networking technology. Perhaps most central to his ambitions, Huang took the wraps off an AI supercomputer platform called DGX GH200 that will help tech companies create successors to ChatGPT. Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Alphabet Inc.’s Google are expected to be among the first users.
“It’s too much,” Huang, 60, said near the end of his keynote at the Computex show. “I know it’s too much.”
The flurry of announcements underscores Nvidia’s shift from a maker of computer graphics chips to a company at the center of the AI boom. Last week, Huang gave a stunning sales forecast for the current quarter - almost $4 billion above analysts’ estimates - fueled by demand for data-center chips that handle AI tasks. That sent the stock to a record high and put Nvidia on the brink of a $1 trillion valuation “- a first for the chip industry.
In the presentation Monday, Huang argued the traditional architecture of the tech industry is no longer improving fast enough to keep up with complex computing tasks. To realize the full potential of AI, customers are increasingly turning to accelerated computing and graphics processing units, or GPUs, like those made by Nvidia.
“We have reached the tipping point of a new computing era,” Huang said, as he paced the stage in a trademark leather jacket.
Huang also showed off the mind-bending capabilities of generative AI to take inputs in the form of words and then put out other media. In one case, he asked for music to match the mood of early morning. In another, he laid out a handful of lyrics and then used AI to transform the idea into a bouncy pop tune.
“Everyone is a creator now,” he said.
Huang showed how Nvidia is teaming up with WPP to use AI and the metaverse to lower the cost of producing advertising. It’s releasing a networking offering that’s designed to turbocharge the speed of information within data centers. And the company is even looking to change how people interact with video games: A service called Nvidia ACE for Games will use AI to enliven background characters and give them more personality.
Huang also unveiled a new robotics platform that he said is aimed at helping Nvidia expanding to industries beyond tech. It’s a reference design that will help other companies build their own robots for use in a range of activities. In heavy industry, for example, he sees opportunities in using robots in factories and warehouses.
