Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang set the tone early for his company's GTC event on Monday, as it returned to California after October's brief foray into Washington under the shadow of US President Donald Trump's White House.
"I just want to remind you this is a technology conference," Mr Huang said, poking fun at the long queues to get into Nvidia’s graphics processing unit conference. "We're going to talk about technology and we're going to talk about platforms."
He went through a long list of developments and upgrades to the company’s vast portfolio of AI hardware and software.
The technology giant introduced the Nvidia BlueField-4 STX, which it describes as an “accelerated storage infrastructure capable of the long-context reasoning”.
Mr Huang also highlighted Nvidia’s new Vera central processing unit (CPU), saying it “delivers results with twice the efficiency and 50 per cent faster than traditional CPUs".
More broadly, he said that Nvidia’s Vera Rubin AI platform now has seven new chips in full production, which that will soon make their way into some of the “world’s largest AI factories".
Mr Huang also touched on the company’s origins in gaming graphics by previewing DLSS 5, which Nvidia says is “company’s most significant breakthrough in computer graphics since the debut of real-time ray tracing in 2018".
It was a big change from October’s event. At that time, before Mr Huang took the stage, the company made sure those watching were aware of Nvidia’s American patriotism.
A video played featuring images of US inventors Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. The film also included a soundbite featuring Mr Trump.
“It’s difficult not to be sentimental about America after watching that video,” Mr Huang said as he opened his keynote address in October. Before that speech, he spoke several times about Mr Trump.
“He’s our President and we want him to be successful so America can win,” he said.
At the time, Mr Huang was lobbying for the White House to lessen the burden of chip export rules, which would make it easier for Nvidia to sell to countries like China.
He and Nvidia have had some success in that regard, but since the October GTC event, Mr Trump's approval rating has dropped, especially after his decision to launch strikes against Iran at the end of February.
This Nvidia GTC is taking place at a time of increasingly reticent US opinions on AI.
A new poll from the non-partisan Pew Research Centre showed that 50 per cent of US adults indicated the increased use of AI in daily life “makes them feel more concerned than excited”.
In 2021, Pew said that only 37 per cent said they were more concerned than excited.
