The CEO of NVIDIA has a mission: to get the US to allow him to sell his chips in China. Over the past few weeks, Huang has been taking advantage of every time a microphone is placed in front of him to warn about the dangers of this blockade. Their argument is that if China does not have access to NVIDIA chips, then they will make their own and create a new Silk Road with AI, thus expanding their influence around the world.
The situation. NVIDIA is a key player in the development of AI due to the superiority of its chips, which in turn places it at the center of the trade and technological war with China. Broadly speaking, this is the sequence of events:
The AI route. The CEO of NVIDIA has been in Washington and has taken advantage of his visit to criticize the United States’ decision to continue blocking the sale of its most powerful chips. Huang has assured that by blocking NVIDIA, the US “has essentially given up the second largest AI market”, as stated in Nikkei Asia. According to its logic, the decision has left room for China to develop its own technology and make it reach the world, expanding its influence beyond its borders.
The Silk Road Economic Belt. Huang has referred to this concept, which refers to the global infrastructure development strategy promoted by the Chinese government in 2013. In other words, a new silk roadbut with technology as a product. Thanks to this initiative Huawei managed to expand its 5G around the world and Huang fears that they will now do the same with AI. “They will undoubtedly spread Chinese technology as quickly as possible, because they understand that the sooner they arrive, the sooner they will build their ecosystem,” he assured.
Huawei. It is the company that has the most possibilities of creating alternatives to NVIDIA technology. Jensen Huang has said of them that “they are one of the most formidable technology companies the world has ever seen. We compete with them (…) They are agile. They move at incredible speed.” Huawei is already trying achieve powerful technologies for AI, although they have not yet reached NVIDIA, but it seems that Huang sees that moment very close.
Nuclear power. Energy has become the choke point for AI. Data centers consume a lot of energy and there China has a clear advantage; They have a more powerful infrastructure and also The government is subsidizing energy. Recently the CEO of NVIDIA already drew attention to this situation and assured that “China is going to win the AI race” due to these subsidies. Now he has brought up the energy issue again, saying that the United States should “use every form of energy” it can and that the government “should try to accelerate the development of nuclear energy.”
Interests. That there is a technological race for the dominance of AI is undeniable, but that catastrophic speech by Jensen Huang is better understood if we take into account that he is the CEO of a company, and what interests him is selling more products. China is not only the US’s competitor, it is also one of the largest markets in the world.
Image | Wikipedia, Gary Lerude on Flickr
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