Maybe the best way to describe Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is an optimist in the face of adversity including losing out on the plan to buy Arm for $40 billion after regulators balked.
“I’m disappointed we didn’t get [Arm] through, but as a result we built wonderful relationships [with Arm] and they understood our vision for high performance computing,” he told reporters Wednesday. The many months of preparing a bid to buy Arm and appearing before regulators resulted in a “more aggressive roadmap in HPC where I needed [Arm] to be and inspired leadership for HPC. “
The experience working with Arm also boosted internal development at Nvidia, Huang said. “We got even more excited and doubled down on the hard chips we have,” he said. “Robotics Arm chips are now in development. Orin is a home run for us, and the reception of Grace is incredible. You’ll see a lot more in that direction. Technology innovation around Arm is turbocharged as well.”
When asked whether the blow of losing out on Arm might cause him to be less aggressive in making future acquisitions, Huang indicated a preference to build inventive technology internally. “We prefer to grow everything…We have so much technology strength and the world’s greatest computer scientists here,” he said. “Every so often something amazing comes out…The good thing is we are so good at organic growth. That’s our approach.”
Acquisitions of great companies are still important, however, including Nvidia’s purchase of Mellanox, he conceded. “Mellanox is a once in a lifetime thing. There’s not another Mellanox and you are never going to build another Arm. When they come along it’s not something to plan on and it doesn’t matter how aggressive you are.”
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Huang’s optimism also applies to how he sees events in the world, including the war in Ukraine and some continuing chip shortages, and their impact on Nvidia’s productivity and ability to innovate.
“There is plenty to worry about, a lot of turbulence, but I have to observe in the last couple of years [during Covid], the fact is that Nvidia moved faster in the last couple years than potentially the last 10.”
One reason for that burst of activity is how designers and other employees “have grown comfortable working remotely and collaboratively across platforms,” he added. “Quite possibly, we work better when we allow employees to choose when they are most productive and let mature people choose their time frame and lifestyle. It’s very possible that truth forced us to put more energy into virtual work. We do work around Omniverse at light speed because we need it and we had to test in virtual worlds in digital twins…It’s possible the world doesn’t have to get dressed and commute and this hybrid work approach is forcing us to be more creative.”
The chip shortage has also forced Nvidia to adjust by creating diverse numbers of chip process nodes and to quality more and more fabs than ever, as well as more substrate vendors and assembly providers, Huang added. Nvidia has second sourced more external components “probably four-fold in the last two years, and this year there will be even more when confronted with adversity and challenged like not once in a lifetime,” he said.
Nvidia is even considering using Intel chip fabrication services, he said.
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