Jensen Huang is often compared to Steve Jobs—as much for heading the world’s most valuable company as for leading a visionary shift in society and technology. Listen to his take on technology, and you know exactly why.
Mention AI and most people think of complex systems with superhuman capabilities. But for Huang, who co-founded Nvidia and is its president, AI is simple—a means to get to where we want to be.
“Artificial intelligence is an infrastructure for society,” he told an exclusive group of media professionals. “Every society needs it. Everybody needs it. Every industry needs it. It is an infra just like water or electricity. Just like the internet is an infra, artificial intelligence is in infrastructure.”
And he has a clear vision for India. “There is no question in my mind that there will be artificial intelligence infrastructure in India,” he said at a select media interaction to which THE WEEK was also invited at the Dassault Systèmes 3DExperience World event in Houston.
“You have many dialects, more than 300, and your language or dialect captures the culture and values of the people, and AI should reflect that culture. AI does not have to be fundamentally invented in India, but it has to be developed, fine-tuned and continuously enhanced in India. The industry of India, the companies, need AI infrastructure. Just like India has its own internet, its own electricity and its own roads, of course, you need to have your own AI,” he said.
Huang was looking forward to his visit to India to attend the India AI Impact Summit in Delhi and meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The trip was later cancelled.
But Nvidia’s interest in India is clearly blossoming. The company recently announced an $850 million pledge to fund the India Deep Tech Alliance as a founding member and strategic adviser. The money will be used to fund Indian startups working on AI, semiconductors, robotics and space technology. Nvidia will provide technical guidance, training and infrastructure to bridge funding gaps and promote local innovation.
But there is expectation for more, including a direct expansion of Nvidia’s already big engineering and R&D force in Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad. Maybe data centres, too. In fact, many were hoping for this announcement during his India visit.
Considering the huge desi workforce in the company (Huang himself confessed that “a third of Nvidia is Indian”), it is clear that his attention on the country, for talent and as a market, remains steadfast.
“The IT services industry of India unquestionably will be reinvented for the AI era,” he predicted, giving a positive spin to a topic that has had India’s software services sector in a nervous tizzy. “Instead of developing and maintaining software in the back rooms of IT departments, it is very likely that the AI IT industry will become service providers, service developers of agentic AI systems to help companies around the world automate their workflow, become more productive, move faster. Thus the reinvention, the reskilling of the IT industry in India will also happen.”
Of course, Huang has a spin on this upcoming upheaval. “Look at the internet in India and the amount of upstream and downstream jobs it has created. AI will do the same,” he said.
The parallels with Jobs, co-founder of Apple, run beyond Huang’s ability to be an evangelist for future tech and giving a rosy tinge even to the tech turmoil that accompanies such rapid transformations. Like his attire—in true geek fashion, Huang prefers grey tees and dark jeans combo as his de facto public attire, just like how Jobs used to appear in his jeans and turtlenecks at Apple’s launch events. And the other, where Huang actually trumps Jobs, is his easy-going demeanour. He is a natural on stage, quick with his comebacks, and making it all seem so effortless, even if he did admit, when asked how he achieved it all, to managing it with just three hours of sleep every night!
It is understandable. Once considered a non-glamorous backroom hardware firm in an age when the Googles and Apples straddled the limelight, Nvidia has today powered past Apple and Microsoft to become the most valued company in the world. It is currently valued around $4.45 trillion.
Huang’s and India’s interests will cross again. And he seems prepared for that. However, if there is one thing that flummoxes him, it is how to develop an AI automated car for India. “It is going to take super AI to learn how to (automate) driving in India, because computer vision alone is not sufficient! Because in India lanes are optional. You drive by honking!” he said. “But a time will come. If humans can drive in those environments, I am certain an AI will learn how to drive in those environments through reasoning.”