Manufacturing Investments
Huang, who co-founded the Santa Clara-based technology giant in 1993, met researchers from the Indian Institute of Science’s (IISc) department of computational and data sciences (CDS), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and IIT Bombay on September 4 during the course of his week-long visit.
Sashikumar Ganesan, associate professor and chair of CDS at IISc, Bengaluru, told ET that the discussions at the HPC and AI Rese- arch Leaders Meet revolved aro- und leaders in artificial intelli- gence (AI) and high performance computing (HPC), which is Nvidia’s primary business domain.
Huang communicated plans to expand Nvidia’s workforce in India and focus on upskilling. “Although we may lack the ecosystem to collect all data, once acquired, all AI and machine learning systems for the world can be trai- ned on it. This is one of the rea- sons why technology companies invest heavily in India,” Gane- san said.
Discussions during the meeting encompassed India’s potential to lead AI research, chip fabrication scaling, and investments in manufacturing.
TRILLION-DOLLAR CLUB
Nvidia manufactures semiconductor chips that are integral to the functioning of Al products built by the likes of Microsoft- backed OpenAI such as ChatGPT. As it rode the surging AI wave in 2023, Nvidia saw a re- cord rise in demand for its chips, which are now at an all-time high.
Nvidia reported a revenue of $13.51 billion for the second quarter ended July 30, 2023, up 101% from a year ago. Its stock recently hit an all-time high after a surge of 315%. The company reached a market value of more than a trillion dollars in May this year, joining the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Amazon.
Following Microsoft’s $10 bil- lion investment into the Sam Altman founded OpenAI earlier this year, Google announced an aggressive follow-up through its own Al tool Bard.
Huang was keen to understand the nuances of high-performancece computing in India, its applications, and Nvidia’s role.
Ajay Kumar Sood, a distinguished honorary professor of Phy- sics at IISc and the principal scientific advisor to the Indian Government, was also among the attendees.
INDIA FOCUS
Nvidia began its operations in India in 2004 in Bengaluru and has four engineering develop- ment centres located in Guru- gram, Hyderabad, Pune and Bengaluru with a workforce of 3,800 individuals in India. More than 320,000 India-based develo- pers are part of Nvidia’s develo per programme.
Huang was updated on the rese- arch activities of CDS at IISc. “We’re integrating machine learning with computational science. Huang was curious about this intersection,” Ganesan said.