Nvidia is Putting Ghosts in the Machine
The future is all about huge computation and chatting up NPC’s. One way or another NVIDIA wants to be a part of it.
Nvidia has found itself at the very heart of the AI industry as its tech has become the go-to option for processing all the insane AI-wizardry we’ve become submerged in recently. This has kicked their stocks into high gear, skyrocketing to higher peaks than even the hype of crypto-mining could achieve. Here in New Zealand it’s been a feeding frenzy as investors jump on board, hoping that it continues on its upwards trajectory. On the retail trading app Sharesies they had a record month in March of NZ traders getting in on AI related tech stocks sending $488 million to the States for stocks in Nvidia and Super Micro Computer Inc. Those two alone made up $35.7m worth of trading on March 5.
Analysts are becoming leery of this spike, but it’s hard to deny that NVIDIA is at the beating heart of the current AI hype train. It’s estimated that they have 80% of the AI market tucked under their belt as hyperscalers like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft all use their hardware to prop up their AI efforts.
To support this growth Nvidia announced a new Blackwell GPU which enables Trillion-Parameter-Scale AI Models with tech that cuts operating and energy costs by up to 25x. These GPUs are packed with 208 billion transistors, the numbers on this stuff are out of this world, and blow anything you’ll ever see in the home consumer space out of the water… For at least the next couple years. Creating efficiencies for such an intensive workload is going to be imperative moving forward. This tech won’t just be good for producing GPT text and images, it will also have applications in engineering simulation, electronic design automation, computer-aided drug design, and quantum computing.
On the software side they’ve also developed NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine. ACE for short this software allows developers to deploy NPCs into their game that can dynamically react and naturally speak to the user. This means in the future every NPC you speak to in GTA could have their own riffed life story. There are already jank examples of it cropping up on youtube, with humorous results. These early iterations take a bit of time to process what you’ve said though. But it’s still early days. The tech is also useful for client facing services where you might want them to interact with a digital customer rep.
“For three decades we’ve pursued accelerated computing, with the goal of enabling transformative breakthroughs like deep learning and AI,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Generative AI is the defining technology of our time. Blackwell is the engine to power this new industrial revolution. Working with the most dynamic companies in the world, we will realize the promise of AI for every industry.
All of the biggest names in the industry have lined up behind Blackwell from Michael Dell, Zuckerberg, Elon Musk. OpenAI’s Sam Altman and their big daddy Satya Nadella at Microsoft.
They have to keep moving fast though, as competitors are right on their heels. Intel is on their tail with their new Gaudi 3 chip, which is more power-efficient and is 1.5x faster at running AI models than Nvidia’s current H100 GPU. The new Blackwell is reportedly 4 times faster than the H100.