Nvidia in 'unique' position in global AI competition: Jensen Huang

Taipei, Nov. 28 (CNA) Nvidia is in a "unique" position in the market despite facing intensifying competition, said the company's CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) during a brief visit to Taiwan on Friday amid a potentially growing challenge from Google for the AI chip market.

Huang told reporters that the AI market is "extremely large" and that while there is a lot of competition, Nvidia's "condition is very strong and our position is very unique."

Huang, who arrived in Taipei on Thursday, was responding to the possible threat posed by Google.

According to a report in The Information on Tuesday, Meta has been in talks to spend billions of U.S. dollars to buy tensor processing units, or TPUs, from Google, which would turn the search engine into a rival of Nvidia, currently the dominant global player in AI chips.

That report sent Nvidia shares plunging the same day, though they have since recovered.

TPUs, which are tailored chips, are highly efficient in AI applications and could give Google an edge over competitors such as Nvidia as TPUs are cheaper than Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs), the report said.

"We just have to keep running very fast" to maintain NVidia's lead in the market in response to the competition, Huang said.

Huang also addressed a report in Business Insider on a meeting Tuesday at Nvidia in which the CEO blasted some managers in a meeting for telling their subordinates to use less AI.

The publication quoted Huang as asking them: "Are you insane?"

Huang said Friday that every Nvidia engineer was using AI, and he reminded them that every department and function of the company should use AI.

No specific reason was given by the company for Huang's stay in Taiwan, but Huang told reporters he visited Morris Chang (張忠謀), founder of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), on Thursday and said the 94-year-old Chang was in "terrific" shape.

Huang said he would leave Taipei for the United States later Friday and had no plan to meet with Taiwanese suppliers during the trip.

The latest visit marked Huang's second trip to Taiwan this month.

On Nov. 7, he went to TSMC's fab located in the Southern Taiwan Science Park to survey the chipmaker's 3 nanometer process production lines.