AI will help India become the front office where value is created: NVIDIA's Jensen Huang

NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang

Artificial intelligence will help India transition from being the IT back office of global companies to the front office for engineering, finance, marketing and sales, NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang said on March 19.

"When I meet with the leaders in India, it is very clear to them that this is one of the greatest opportunities for them to reskill themselves. Instead of the back room of companies, they will now become the front room of the companies where value is created," he said.

"AI is used for engineering, marketing, sales, finance, business operations, marketing strategies, all of that is front office. India is looking to come into the front office," he added.

A day after announcing a new generation of AI chips that are 30 times more powerful than the preceding version, Huang also said that NVIDIA is keen to participate in the Indian government's plan to procure 10,000 graphics processing units for domestic startups and researchers.

"If India is buying GPUs for AI, if I can throw my thoughts... Nvidia builds really good AI GPUs. When you go back, please spread the word. If somebody wants to buy GPUs, I am open for business. And we're quite interested in it," Huang said.

"India shouldn’t export flour to import bread. Why export data to import AI? Refine it, add value in India," he added.

The Union Cabinet recently approved the India AI Mission with an outlay of Rs 10,372 crore for five years to encourage AI development in the country. Under the mission, supercomputing capacity, comprising over 10,000 GPUs (graphics processing units), will be made available to various stakeholders for creating an AI ecosystem.

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A new industrial revolution

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of NVIDIA's annual technology conference in San Jose, California, Huang said that generative AI is creating a new industrial revolution.

"In the last industrial revolution, raw material was water and electricity. This time it is data... Generative AI is a new type of factory, a new industrial revolution," he said.

"I think AI has already made the greatest contribution to the world as you don't need to learn C++ anymore to be successful. You can be a prompt engineer. When my wife is talking to me, she is prompting," he added in jest.

(This correspondent was in San Jose at NVIDIA's invitation)