NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang on Friday inspired Caltech graduates to pursue their craft with dedication and resilience — and to view setbacks as new alternatives.
“I hope you consider in one thing. One thing unconventional, one thing unexplored. However let or not it’s knowledgeable, and let or not it’s reasoned, and dedicate your self to creating that occur,” he mentioned. “Chances are you’ll discover your GPU. Chances are you’ll discover your CUDA. Chances are you’ll discover your generative AI. Chances are you’ll discover your NVIDIA.”
Buying and selling his signature leather-based jacket for black and yellow educational regalia, Huang addressed the practically 600 graduates at their graduation ceremony in Pasadena, Calif., beginning with the story of the computing business’s decades-long evolution to achieve this pivotal second of AI transformation.
“Computer systems right this moment are the only most necessary instrument of data, and it’s foundational to each single business in each area of science,” Huang mentioned. “As you enter business, it’s necessary you realize what’s occurring.”
He shared how, over a decade in the past, NVIDIA — a small firm on the time — wager on deep studying, investing billions of {dollars} and years of engineering sources to reinvent each computing layer.
“Nobody knew how far deep studying may scale, and if we didn’t construct it, we’d by no means know,” Huang mentioned. Referencing the well-known line from Discipline of Desires — should you construct it, he’ll come — he mentioned, “Our logic is: If we don’t construct it, they’ll’t come.”
Trying to the longer term, Huang mentioned, the subsequent wave of AI is robotics, a area the place NVIDIA’s journey resulted from a collection of setbacks.
He mirrored on a interval in NVIDIA’s previous when the corporate annually constructed new merchandise that “can be extremely profitable, generate monumental quantities of pleasure. After which one yr later, we had been kicked out of these markets.”
These roadblocks pushed NVIDIA to hunt out untapped areas — what Huang refers to as “zero-billion-dollar markets.”
“With no extra markets to show to, we determined to construct one thing the place we’re positive there are not any clients,” Huang mentioned. “As a result of one of many issues you may undoubtedly assure is the place there are not any clients, there are additionally no rivals.”
Robotics was that new market. NVIDIA constructed the primary robotics pc, Huang mentioned, processing a deep studying algorithm. Over a decade later, that pivot has given the corporate the chance to create the subsequent wave of AI.
“One setback after one other, we shook it off and skated to the subsequent alternative. Every time, we achieve abilities and strengthen our character,” Huang mentioned. “No setback that comes our approach doesn’t appear like a chance lately.”
Huang confused the significance of resilience and agility as superpowers that strengthen character.
“The world might be unfair and deal you with powerful playing cards. Swiftly shake it off,” he mentioned, with a tongue-in-cheek reference to certainly one of Taylor Swift’s largest hits. “There’s one other alternative on the market — or create one.”
Huang concluded by sharing a narrative from his travels to Japan, the place, as he watched a gardener painstakingly tending to Kyoto’s well-known moss backyard, he realized that when an individual is devoted to their craft and prioritizes doing their life’s work, they at all times have loads of time.
“Prioritize your life,” he mentioned, “and you should have loads of time to do the necessary issues.”
Fundamental picture courtesy of Caltech.