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Nvidia founder tells Taiwan graduates to seize the 'golden opportunities' of the AI revolution, which has only just begun

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang Jen-hsun told 2023 graduates of the National Taiwan University (NTU) that they should seize the "golden opportunities" of an artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, with the technology set to change every business.

"While some worry that AI may take their jobs ... AI will create new jobs that didn't exist before" such as data engineering, prompt engineering and AI safety engineers, Huang, an honorary doctor of NTU since 2020, said in a commencement address in front of about 10,000 students at the university in Taipei on Saturday. "In every way, this is a rebirth of the computer industry. And a golden opportunity for the companies of Taiwan," he said.

"Just as I was with the PC and chip revolution, you're at the beginning, at the starting line of AI. Every industry will be revolutionised," said Huang.

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He encouraged the students to "run" hard and seize opportunities from the AI revolution. "Whatever it is, run after it like we did. Run. Don't walk. Either you're running for food, or you are running from being food."

Nvidia has recently surged to become the most valued chip company in the world, exceeding Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), with its key products, such as H100 graphic processing units (GPUs), in hot demand as interest in AI ramps up.

Huang's speech came after Nvidia last Thursday posted net profit of more than US$2 billion and US$7 billion in sales in the first quarter of its 2024 financial year, both higher than industry estimates.

Wearing a black graduation robe with the university's plum-blossom emblem instead of his iconic black leather jacket, Huang started his speech by greeting students in Taiwanese but switched to English as he felt "nervous" about his "not standard" local dialect.

Huang, born in southern Taiwan's Tainan city in 1963, moved to the United States with his family at an early age. He received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University in 1984, and held various positions at computer chip maker LSI Logic Corp and semiconductor firm Advanced Micro Devices.

He co-founded Nvidia with start-up capital of US$40,000 in 1993, one year after receiving a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

During his 20-minute speech to students, Huang recounted three Nvidia stories that helped shape the company into the trillion dollar AI leader it is today. He urged graduates to "have the humility to confront failure, admit a mistake, and ask for help".

His first lesson involved Nvidia's experience with Japanese entertainment company Sega Corp. Huang said a strategic mistake with a chip architecture meant giving up on a contract with the Japanese firm, but sought help from Sega's then CEO to avoid bankruptcy. "Confronting our mistake and, with humility, asking for help, saved Nvidia," he said.

The second story occurred in 2007 when Huang decided to put Nvidia's pioneering CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) into all of the company's GPUs, enabling them to process data in addition to 3D graphics.

But the high cost and poor company performance as a result was met with scepticism by shareholders at the time, who "preferred to focus on improving profitability".

Huang said he resisted this pressure and "risked everything to pursue deep learning" until his efforts paid off many years later when chips started to be used for machine learning amid a new wave of AI development. "The journey forged our corporate character - to endure pain and suffering that is always needed to realise a vision," he said.

The last story described the company's "strategic retreat" from the highly competitive phone market in 2010, and the move towards robotics. "Strategic retreat, sacrifice, deciding what to give up, is ... the very core of success," Huang said.

As part of a two-week trip to Taiwan which began last week, Huang will also visit several chip suppliers, including ASUS and Wistron, and meet with senior executives at TSMC, according to Taiwan media reports. Last Thursday, a picture showing Huang walking through a Taipei night market went viral on social media.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.