MUMBAI: India has the opportunity to “reinvent” itself from a back office IT cost reduction industry to a front office AI-driven innovation ecosystem as the country has access to all the key resources needed to fuel AI capabilities, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said while advocating the need to regulate AI in context of its use.
“To elevate yourself (India) from an IT cost reduction industry, from a labour outsourcing industry to become an AI production industry, I think you have got to pursue that with all your might. Every aspect of AI, the natural resources are here. The digital economy is here… so there are lots and lots of data. You have deep understanding of computer science, computing, you have massive resources and in order to be an AI industry, to manufacture intelligence, you need energy, data and the computer science expertise. All of three exists right here,” Huang said at Economic Times Conversations here on Friday. He added that the natural resource of India is its data and that the data of India belongs to India. “There is no reason to let anyone else harvest that, process that and turn it into something of value. You could do it yourself.”
Huang, the architect of the modern day AI revolution, said that a third of Nvidia is here in India. Nvidia’s senior leadership is Indian, and a third of the company’s engineers are here too. India designs Nvidia’s chips, develops a lot of Nvidia’s algorithms, said the CEO clad in his signature black leather jacket. In fact, Huang said that he enjoyed the Mumbai heat! “I came (to India) not expecting anything but I leave with incredible enthusiasm and optimism. The number of startups here, the understanding of the opportunity of AI, the energy that’s here is really quite extraordinary. I am excited about the opportunity for India,” he said.
Nvidia’s first mover advantage in designing GPUs, adapting them for AI applications alongside building its CUDA software, which enabled programming GPUs for new tasks, cemented its position as the modern day AI authority, zooming past rival chipmakers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. With AI becoming intrinsic to every industry in a digital world, demand for Nvidia’s products has soared. The most valuable company in the world with a market capitalisation that tops $3 trillion recently said that demand for its next generation Blackwell AI chip is “insane”.
Huang said that AI will elevate the capabilities of everyone, not just the top 1% and that the technology divide will get reduced. “The ability to programme a computer… for most of the people in India, to write a C++ or python is unlikely… however, for everyone in India to program an AI, to tell the AI to do something on their behalf a 100%. And now the AI is to everybody the same,” he said.
