File photo/NBD

On May 27th, Jensen Huang's speech at National Taiwan University went viral in the tech community. AI was undoubtedly one of the main topics of his speech.

He pointed out that everyone is about to enter a world of great change, just like the personal computer and chip revolution. Currently, we are at the starting line of AI, and every industry will be revolutionized. AI brings huge opportunities for everyone, and agile companies will use AI technology to enhance their competitiveness, while companies that fail to use AI effectively will fade.

Jensen Huang said that AI will change every job and greatly improve the performance of engineers, designers, artists, and others. He expects that every company and individual must learn to use AI, even though some people are worried that AI may take away their jobs. We are currently at the beginning of the AI era, and AI will fundamentally reshape computers, which is a rebirth opportunity for the computer technology industry and a golden opportunity for Taiwanese manufacturers. "Please use artificial intelligence to accomplish unimaginable and incredible things."

Some people are worried that AI may take away job opportunities, and some are worried that AI will develop self-will. Jensen Huang responded, "We are at the beginning of a new field, just like personal computers, networks, mobile devices, and cloud technology. But the impact of AI is more fundamental, and every level of calculation will be rewritten. It changes the way we write software and execute software. In every way, this is an opportunity for the computer industry to be reborn, and it is a golden opportunity for companies. You are an important cornerstone of this industry."

In his speech, Jensen Huang mentioned the company's three "failures" in the early days, because of which the company is on the brink of bankruptcy. He said, "At Nvidia, I experienced failure, great failure, all of which were shameful and embarrassing, almost leading us to extinction."

The first story is about the 3D graphics chip invented by Nvidia, which was initially used for computer games. After several generations of development, in order to reduce costs, Nvidia cooperated with the Japanese game giant Sega. However, after a year of development, Jensen Huang found that the industry had changed rapidly, and Microsoft had developed the Direct3D graphics interface on Windows 95, which made Nvidia and Sega's jointly-developed technology out of favor. Jensen Huang said that it was Nvidia's recognition of the mistake and timely stop-loss, and humble seeking of help that enabled them to survive the crisis of bankruptcy.

The second story is about CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), which has made Nvidia's market value peak today. In 2007, Jensen Huang decided to embed CUDA into all of the company's GPUs, allowing them to process not only 3D graphics but also data. However, this was an expensive long-term investment that received a lot of criticism. It wasn't until 2014 when a scholar used CUDA for AI computing, opening the era of artificial intelligence. "Fortunately, we also discovered the potential of artificial intelligence. Years later, Nvidia became the engine of AI revolution."

With the booming of the global AI market, Nvidia reported first-quarter results that exceeded expectations. Its stock price accordingly soared by 24.4% in a single day, setting a record for the highest single-day increase since its listing, with a cumulative increase of 166% this year, and a total market value approaching $1 trillion. Jensen Huang's net worth has skyrocketed to over $33 billion (approximately RMB 230 billion).

The third story is about Nvidia's failure in the mobile market. "We made a difficult decision to give up this market. Because Nvidia's mission is to create computers that can solve problems that 'ordinary computers cannot solve,' we should focus on this vision and make our unique contributions," Jensen Huang said.