Orlando, Fla. — Wearing his signature black leather jacket, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivered a highly anticipated speech at the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo on Tuesday, during which he discussed a series of leadership topics .
Nvidia has had tremendous success with its graphics processing units (GPUs). Once thought of primarily as a processor for handling intense graphics workloads, like video games, high-performance units have proven to be effective tools for large language models (LLMs) as well. The near-immediate success of Open AI’s ChatGPT after its launch two years ago created an arms race for companies to build GenAI platforms. Nvidia has benefited from this race, propelling it to the top of the most valuable companies in the world.
So CIOs were eager to hear Huang talk about similar success. Hundreds of attendees waited in line more than an hour before the doors to Huang’s keynote began to open.
Huang sat down for an interview with Gartner analyst and vice president Daryl Plummer.
“Nvidia has shown us a different path, from graphics chips to data centers to large-scale generative AI, they have unleashed computing power that hits AI, gaming, and then the world-changing phenomenon he is today,” Plummer said before Huang took the stage.
Responding to a question from Plummer about his personal style — which consists of the same all-black outfit worn in public — and whether that simplicity leaves room for his leadership vision, Huang said his leadership has more to do with whether to look to the future than to focus on the future. on style.
“When you see something impactful, something surprising and unexpected, you have to ask yourself, ‘What does this mean and what is the long-term impact?’ …Now the next part is if you believe deeply in something, you’re going to do something. The best technique is to get started.
Living in the future and “tokenization”
Huang said CIOs should adopt a forward-looking mindset that allows them to adapt to a rapidly changing technology landscape. “It is easier to live in the future than to live in the past,” he said to applause. “Living in the past is more painful.” Future thinking is “hopes, dreams, beliefs…the question is: once you manifest that future in your mind, are you going to do anything about it?” »
Nvidia has certainly done something about this. The company’s rapid transformation into a critical provider of AI-enabled processing units has paid off. In its latest financial report, the company reported revenue of $30 billion in the second quarter of 2024, an increase of 15% from the previous quarter and a 122% year-over-year increase. .
He explained how the industry evolved very quickly, from one focused on hardware and software to one centered on invisible “tokens” that could translate visual and linguistic data into usable products.
“This industry has never existed before, and this industry is going to have factories — these buildings with computers inside — and these computers are incredibly good at transforming the raw material, which is data, into this new invisible thing that is monetized by millions of tokens per hour… floating point numbers that could be reconstituted into language, reconstituted into images and videos.
Eventually, Huang said, “we will symbolize robotic articulation, we will be able to symbolize proteins and chemicals… What we are seeing… is the beginning of a new industrial revolution.”
Digital workers versus human workers
While many have cited concerns that the rapid development of artificial intelligence could replace much of the workforce, Huang offers a more optimistic view. Digital workers, working alongside human workers, will increase productivity and create more opportunities for everyone.
He said agentic AI will allow human employees to interact with a digital workforce that is not necessarily there to replace them, but to improve the productivity and growth of the entire business .
“And all these digital employees…I incentivize them the same way I incentivize organic employees. They’re going to come together, they’re going to work together as a team, and we’re going to give them problems that they can accomplish together.
He added: “We need to create more AI jobs first so we can create more human jobs… If you create more AI jobs now, you will be a more productive company.” You would generate more revenue, which would allow you to hire more people.
