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The Reliance Industries Limited chairman explained how Nvidia reminded him of “vidya” (knowledge) and when one is devoted to it sincerely, prosperity follows
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in Mumbai. (Screenshot)
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani on Thursday gave a novel — and Indian — spin to the meaning behind chip behemoth Nvidia’s name, prompting an excited CEO Jensen Huang to exclaim that he was glad he stuck to the moniker despite criticism.
Ambani, during a conversation with Huang in Mumbai, said while the latter called Nvidia “an exotic place”, he had a different version in mind.
“There is a very important word in Hindi, Vidya, which means knowledge,” the RIL chairman said as an ecstatic Huang exclaimed: “I knew I named the company right. Everybody said it’s a horrible name and you’ll never make it.”
Ambani was quick to remind the CEO that the explanation “gets better”. “Vidya is depicted by the Goddess of Knowledge Saraswati and when you devote yourself seriously to the Goddess of Knowledge then, according to our tradition, the Goddess of Prosperity Lakshmi follows. So, what you are driving is the knowledge revolution and turning it into the intelligence revolution that drives prosperity across the world.”
The honchos, who shared several light moments during the chat, also announced their partnership to build artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in India.
“India will be one of the biggest artificial intelligence markets. It’s the youth power that exists in India that will drive intelligence and that too for domestic market,” Ambani said.
He added: “India is fast becoming the innovation hub for the world. Apart from the US and China, India has the best digital connectivity infrastructure. Jio took India from Number 158 in the world to Number 1 in the world in just eight years.”
The RIL chairman, at the end of his interaction, also wished Huang and the audience a happy Diwali, wishing him prosperity in the coming year.
In September last year, Reliance and Nvidia vowed to develop AI supercomputers in India and build large language models trained on its languages.
Meanwhile, Huang also said their cutting-edge Blackwell chips — crucial to its upcoming graphics processing unit (GPU) architecture — will be available for shipping to customers from the fourth quarter onwards, with production in full swing at TSMC’s facilities.
