6 Takeaways From Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s GPU Tech Conference Keynote

Nvidia (NVDA) founder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang kicked off the company’s annual GPU technology conference (GTC) Monday with a keynote address unveiling the Blackwell platform, announcing expanding partnerships with industry leaders, and showcasing the tech’s capabilities.

The Nvidia event, which runs through Thursday, has been eagerly anticipated by investors who are keen to learn about the chipmaker’s artificial intelligence initiatives and partnerships. Nvidia stock has risen more than 80% since the start of the year amid optimism about the company’s AI-fueled growth prospects.

Here are some of the key takeaways from Huang’s presentation and announcements made by the company on the first day of the event,

Unveiling Blackwell, the ‘World’s Most Powerful Chip’

Nvidia announced the Blackwell platform the latest version of its AI-powering technology. The Blackwell GPU is the “world’s most powerful chip,” that will power “a new era of computing,” the company said.

The new system is more capable and efficient than its predecessor, Hopper.

“The inference capability of Blackwell is off the charts and in fact it is some 30 times Hopper,” Huang said in his keynote address.

The Blackwell architecture can run a generative AI large language model consuming around 25 times less cost and energy as Hopper, Nvidia said in a release.

Nvidia also unveiled the GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip, a “massive super chip” that “connects two NVIDIA B200 Tensor Core GPUs to the NVIDIA Grace CPU.”

The company said that “GB200 will also be available on NVIDIA DGX™ Cloud, an AI platform co-engineered with leading cloud service providers that gives enterprise developers dedicated access to the infrastructure and software needed to build and deploy advanced generative AI models.”

Nvidia reported that many companies leading AI are already set to use the Blackwell system, ahead of its official launch.

Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL) are among the partners set to use Blackwell.

Nvidia said that Blackwell products will be available through its partners later this year.

Nvidia’s Omniverse Meets Apple’s VisionPro

Nvidia announced that it is bringing Omniverse to Apple’s (AAPL) recently launched VisionPro virtual reality headset.

The Omniverse is Nvidia’s “computing platform that enables individuals and teams to develop 3D workflows and applications.” Huang opened his keynote with a demonstration of Omniverse simulations.

Developers can “easily send their Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD) industrial scenes from their content creation applications to the NVIDIA Graphics Delivery Network (GDN), a global network of graphics-ready data centers that can stream advanced 3D experiences to Apple Vision Pro,” Nvidia said.

AI Humanoid Robots Are Next

Nvidia announced “Project GR00T,” a foundation model for humanoid robots, which Huang said is the “next wave” of AI and robotics.

“Building foundation models for general humanoid robots is one of the most exciting problems to solve in AI today,” Huang said, adding that “the enabling technologies are coming together for leading roboticists around the world to take giant leaps towards artificial general robotics.”

The company said that the “robots powered by GR00T, which stands for Generalist Robot 00 Technology, will be designed to understand natural language and emulate movements by observing human actions.”

Nvidia also unveiled “Jetson Thor,” a new computer for humanoid robots that includes GenAI capabilities as part of its AI-powered robotics initiative.

Blueprint for ‘Next Gen’ Data Centers

Nvidia showed a 3D blueprint for “next-gen” data centers in the AI era.

The design was created using Omniverse to simulate “modern data centers,” which are “incredibly complex, involving multiple considerations like performance, energy efficiency and scalability,” the company said.

“In the future, data centers are going to be thought of, as I mentioned earlier, as an AI factory,” Huang said, adding that the goal of an AI factory is the “generation of intelligence.”

Nvidia’s latest offerings are expected to supercharge data centers. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a release that “by bringing the GB200 Grace Blackwell processor” to Microsoft datacenters globally, [the company is] building on [its] long-standing history of optimizing NVIDIA GPUs for our cloud, as we make the promise of AI real for organizations everywhere.”

Nvidia and Oracle Expand Sovereign AI Partnership

Nvidia announced that it is expanding its collaboration with Oracle (ORCL) to help deliver sovereign AI globally.

Sovereign AI “refers to a nation’s capabilities to produce artificial intelligence using its own infrastructure, data, workforce and business networks,” Nvidia explained.

The Nvidia and Oracle partnership to meant to “deliver sovereign AI solutions to customers around the world” as “Oracle’s distributed cloud, AI infrastructure, and generative AI services, combined with NVIDIA’s accelerated computing and generative AI software, are enabling governments and enterprises to deploy AI factories.”

“As AI reshapes business, industry, and policy around the world, countries and organizations need to strengthen their digital sovereignty in order to protect their most valuable data,” Oracle CEO Safra Catz said said in a release.

New 6G Cloud Platform AI

Nvidia announced a a 6G research platform that offers “researchers a comprehensive suite to advance AI for radio access network (RAN) technology.”

“The platform allows organizations to accelerate the development of 6G technologies that will connect trillions of devices with the cloud infrastructures, laying the foundation for a hyper-intelligent world supported by autonomous vehicles, smart spaces and a wide range of extended reality and immersive education experiences and collaborative robots,” the company said in a release.

Nvidia said the platform will empower the “the next phase of wireless technology” and could meet the growing demand presented by running AI on wireless devices.

Nvidia shares, which had gained 0.7% during regular trading hours Monday, fell 1.8% to $868.90 in extended trading.