Bay Area’s ‘Super Bowl of AI’ sees Nvidia unveil new chips
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang introduced the tech powerhouse’s new chips in front of a packed crowd in San Jose on Tuesday at what he dubbed the “Super Bowl” of artificial intelligence.
Huang, a billionaire, wore his trademark black jacket as he spoke for over two hours without a script. Nvidia has been one of the winners so far in the race for artificial intelligence. Its chips have powered the ascendant industry and its stock has soared 30% in the past year, though it has lost value in the past three months. Huang was speaking at Nvidia’s annual GPU Tech Conference, which is welcoming around 25,000 attendees this week at San Jose’s convention center and SAP Center.
Huang announced the company’s Blackwell Ultra graphics processing unit, which will be released in the second half of this year followed next year by the Vera Rubin chip, named for the famed astronomer.
He said,
GTC was described as the Woodstock of AI. This year it’s described as the Super Bowl of AI,
He said,
The only difference is, everybody wins.
Not everyone is so positive on AI: Many fear it will destroy jobs, while artists have bemoaned generative AI’s consumption of paintings and videos to fuel their algorithms. There are also widespread concerns over misinformation, privacy and safety risks.
But it was evident at the conference, whose sponsors include tech heavyweights like Google and Amazon, that corporations have largely embraced AI.
Huang said, citing retail and health care, as well as the tech sector,
Just about every industry is represented
at the conference,
The transportation sector is also going big on AI. On Tuesday, General Motors and Nvidia said they were partnering to develop driver-assistance systems and next generation vehicles. The deal comes in the wake of GM’s closure of San Francisco-based Cruise, its autonomous vehicle startup.
Huang, said:
AI is going through an inflection point,
“It has become more useful because it’s smarter. It can reason. It is more used. And the amount of computation to train those models … has grown tremendously”
Reach Roland Li: roland.li@sfchronicle.com; X: @rolandlisf
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Bay Area’s ‘Super Bowl of AI’ sees Nvidia unveil new chips, source
