Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer 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 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 US$1 trillion valuation — a first for the chip industry.
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.Huang showed how Nvidia is teaming up with WPP Plc to use AI and the metaverse to lower the cost of producing advertising.
One of the biggest AI bottlenecks is the speed at which data moves within data centers. Nvidia’s Spectrum X, a networking system that uses technology acquired in the 2020 purchase of Mellanox Technologies, will address that issue. And the company is building a data center in Israel to demonstrate how effective it is.