Graphics card and chipmaking giant NVIDIA, which announced key partnerships with Indian companies to build indigenous artificial intelligence-based systems and language models on Friday, said it believes in the potential of India to become the AI capital of the world. Founder and CEO Jensen Huang said AI could be India's biggest export in coming years, with an existing talent pool that is deeper than any other nation's.

“I've always believed this to be your (India’s) natural resource — computer scientists. You produce them at incredible scale and you're incredibly good at it and you export it all over the world. Well, you've got to transform that it natural resource into an AI natural resource, Huang said.

“You have the data, you have the computer science, you just have to buy a few factories — go buy some infrastructure, buy some some factories. We're more than delighted to help partner with companies ... then AI could be built in India, used in India and exported from India,” Huang said while a addressing a media briefing in Bengaluru, soon after announcing NVIDIA’s plans to help build the infrastructure to bring advanced AI to India.

NVIDIA is among the world's largest chipmakers — and certainly the most valuable — in the world, and is primarily known for its cutting edge graphics cards which, while expensive, power some of the most popular gaming computers around the world. Incorporated 30 years ago in the US, NVIDIA today is synonymous with computing and graphical prowess with a nearly ubiquitous presence in nearly every electronic device in the world.

Huang’s comments on India's potential came after a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this week in New Delhi.

“My prediction, and this is what I told Modi ji, is that the next time I come back (to India), it is very likely that one of the largest export products of India is AI. That you will produce, you will export more AI expertise than any country in the world. And it potentially could be your largest export,” said Huang.

Forget artificial intelligence, Huang said. What India has in its favour is actual intelligence in the form of its engineers and scientists.

"You produce world class computer scientists at scale…and there's no reason to export the data to a western company…we should build it here, train it here and produce AI here. You have everything you need,” Huang added.

NVIDIA on on Friday announced partnerships with Reliance Industries and the Tata Group to bring advanced Artificial Intelligence or AI technology to India. With Reliance Industries, NVIDIA said it would build India’s own foundation large language model trained on diverse languages.

As part of this, NVIDIA will provide Jio with end-to-end AI supercomputer technologies for building the AI models, and Jio will manage and maintain the AI cloud infrastructure.

With the Tata Group, NVIDIA will work with Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors and Tata Communications. It will Upskill TCS’s six lakh plus employees in AI. It will also work with Tata Motors to deploy AI across design, styling, engineering, simulation testing and autonomous vehicle capabilities, and it will help Tata Communications build AI infrastructure.

“I genuinely believe this is a golden time for India. . The energy in India has always been great… There is genuine international desire to invest in India, unlike any time in history,” Huang told journalists in Bengaluru.

NVIDIA's value has skyrocketed this year. The chipmaker's stock was trading at $143.15 per share on the Nasdaq at the beginning 2023 before touching a record high of $493.5 on August 31, making it the most valuable chipmaker in the world. In Friday's session, the company's stock traded at a high of $466.06.

For perspective, Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC), possibly the most famous semiconductor manufacturer in the world, is currently trading at just under $90, having touched a high of $107.06 on June 12 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Working with Startups

Huang also said NVIDIA is working with more than 15,000 AI-based startups across the world. “I wouldn't be surprised if 150 or so are here in India,” he said.

“Many of the Indian startups have to go somewhere else to build their company. And that has to stop. The reason they have to go somewhere else is because of better infrastructure. If you're here, what supercomputer do you have? And so they have to go somewhere else, just as researchers have to go to large companies today to do their research because we have supercomputers,” Huang added.

“In the future, I hope that we have the supercomputers here in India, our engineers will use the supercomputers here ... the engineers can stay here, you don't have to go anywhere else to do it.”

Programming Language of the Future is Human: Huang

When asked what the future of programming languages would be, Huang said it would be “human.”

“For the very first time, C++ is not the language of the computer. It's not Java. not Python... it's your language, and you tell the computer what you want, and the computer does it.”

“With Artificial Intelligence, we've closed the technology divide,” Huang said.

What Keeps Jensen Huang Going

When asked what keeps the 60-year-old NVIDIA chief going, he joked, “well today it is two cups of iced coffee, and a masala omelette, very spicy!”

He added, on a more serious note, “I've learned learn a long time ago. You're either running for food, or you're running from becoming food.”

Also read: NVIDIA, Tata Group to work together on AI computing infrastructure, platforms

First Published:Sept 8, 2023 8:35 PM IST