Nvidia has unveiled new products and plans to accelerate the advancement of artificial intelligence, and the CEO of the AI hardware company told a packed stadium in Taipei on Sunday that “the next Industrial Revolution has begun.”
Jensen Huang is in Taiwan to attend the island’s main technology exhibition, Computex, along with the CEOs of some of the world’s largest semiconductor companies, including AMD, Intel and Qualcomm, and their plans for a dominated technology industry by AI top the agenda.
Taiwan-born Huang has celebrity status on the island, and there was significant media and public interest in his visit thanks in large part to Nvidia’s status as the undisputed leader in specialized chips and hardware needed to build and run AI. of Vanguard.
“Companies and countries are partnering with Nvidia to shift traditional trillion-dollar data centers to accelerated computing and build a new type of data center – AI factories – to produce a new product: artificial intelligence” Huang told the crowd at National Taiwan University. sport Center.
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He also described how some major tech companies, such as Taiwan’s Foxconn (the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer) and German industrial company Siemens, are using Nvidia platforms to develop AI-powered autonomous robots.
While Nvidia had just launched its Blackwell platform, Huang announced plans for an “ultra” version in 2025 and briefly teased a next-generation graphics processing unit (GPU) architecture codenamed Rubin.
“Our company is on a one-year pace,” he said, pointing to an accelerated roadmap for new GPU products each year.
In the future laid out by Huang during his nearly two-hour speech, “almost every interaction you have with the Internet or with a computer will likely have generative AI running somewhere in the cloud.”
His keynote speech was also full of praise for Taiwan, whose advanced semiconductor industry is crucial to the production of everything from iPhones to the servers that run ChatGPT.
“Taiwan is the home of our valued partners,” he said. “This is… where everything Nvidia does begins, our partners and ourselves bring it to the world. “Taiwan and our partnership have created the world’s AI infrastructure.”
A day before his speech, Huang threw out the opening pitch before a baseball game in Taipei. And on Thursday he had dinner with some of Taiwan’s tech industry leaders, including the head of Foxconn.
AMD’s Lisa Su and Qualcomm boss Cristiano Amon are also scheduled to give keynote speeches at Computex.
Su is expected to outline AMD’s plans to compete in cutting-edge AI, while Amon will “showcase the AI-accelerated experiences users can expect from their next-generation PCs,” according to organizers.
Also speaking at the event will be Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and Rene Haas, head of British chip design giant Arm.
Tech companies are betting big on AI, and Taiwanese manufacturers are central to their plans: the island produces most of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, including those needed for the most powerful AI applications and research.
Suppliers like Foxconn, traditionally focused on contract electronics for companies like Apple, have also pivoted in recent years toward producing AI hardware.
Foxconn CEO Young Liu told shareholders on Friday that the company’s global market share for AI servers would rise to 40% this year.
However, Taiwan’s central position in the semiconductor supply chain – the lifeblood of the modern economy – has become a source of concern in capitals and boardrooms around the world.
Taiwan is autonomous, but China claims the island as its territory and has never ruled out using force to bring it under its control.
In recent years, the relationship between Beijing and Taipei has deteriorated and the Chinese military has held multiple large-scale exercises around the island, including simulating a blockade.