In the world where people increasingly doubt the potential of artificial intelligence, you can count on Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, to be the latest to proclaim that artificial intelligence will be a fundamental force in changing society.
In a conversation with WIRED senior writer Lauren Goode at The Substantial Interview event on Tuesday in San Francisco, Huang called the artificial intelligence trend “the computer reset as we know it [it] for the last 60 years.” The power of artificial intelligence is, he said, “so amazing that it is impossible to compete with it. You’re either on this wave or you’ve missed it.
This means, Jensen said, “people are starting to realize that artificial intelligence is like energy and communications infrastructure, and now there will be a digital intelligence infrastructure.”
But now Huang’s task is whether he can convince others, especially governments around the world, to agree on his vision.
Huang was the only caller at the event who called from outside the country. He was in Thailand, where Huang said he lived for five years as a child and where just today he met with Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thailand’s prime minister, to talk about building.world-class AI infrastructure“in the country together.
This is the last stop in this year of Huang’s whirlwind journey to get governments on board with the idea that they should chart their own individual path to the future by building their own AI infrastructure, processing their own national data, owning their own AI systems and, of course, buying Chips Nvidia designed for this purpose.
The pitch seems to have performed quite well. Thailand is a modern addition to the list at least 10 countries, according to data collected by Sherwood News, which has signed a contract with Nvidia for AI infrastructure projects. Huang himself said in an interview that he has been to Denmark, Japan, Indonesia and India this year; all countries have chosen to build their own national AI systems using Nvidia chips.
The success of Huang’s appeal to world governments reflects both a fundamental recognition of the potential of artificial intelligence systems and an increasingly fragmented Internet in which geographic boundaries are being rebuilt on the Internet. Artificial intelligence is the latest technology product where the invisible flow of chips and data is hindered by nation-state borders.
One of the main tensions lies between the United States and China, two leading technology powers that want to take center stage in the coming wave of technological change. When the two countries collide, Nvidia inevitably finds itself at the center of the storm.
Just on Monday, the Biden administration announced new restrictions that will ban the export of chip components and chipmaking technology to China. One limitation concerns high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, a memory component often used in custom AI chips. Nvidia H20 chips, which are intended to be sold to Chinese companies without violating export controls, contain HBM chips. Nvidia reportedly stopped accepting Chinese orders for H20 chips back in September, according to Chinese media reportsexpecting restrictions this week.