Nvidia has long been associated with cryptocurrencies and GPU-powered mining due to its powerful hardware. Nonetheless, Nvidia’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Michael Kagan has come out against the crypto industry, deeming it “useless” in a recent interview with the Guardian. As such, Nvidia has now turned its attention to Artificial Intelligence (AI) instead.
Michael Kagan has stressed the reliance of emerging technologies such as AI and cryptocurrencies on powerful hardware for their growth, however the former has surpassed the latter in terms of widespread popularity. Kagan is of the opinion that the AI chatbot ChatGPT would be a more useful application of Nvidia GPUs than the potential benefit of crypto mining.
Though Nvidia was successful in providing graphics cards to crypto miners, the temporary boom resulted in a massive reduction in stock prices leading to a graphics card shortage. This forced Nvidia’s hand to deliver software to limit the performance of their cards when running Ethereum. Despite this, the company has yet to fully embrace the crypto industry due to its belief that it would be detrimental to society.
On the other hand, Nvidia has committed itself to the development and promotion of AI, and the hard work has paid off. The company has seen a huge surge in stock price year-to-date (81%), with a further increase in market capitalization of $294 billion. Notable highlights for the chip-maker include partnerships with Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, and the first version of ChatGPT was trained using 10,000 of Nvidia’s GPUs.
There is an undeniable pressure from environmentalists when it comes to crypto mining due its large amount of energy consumption. It certainly remains a significant part of the blockchain industry, particularly with its involvement in some of the leading cryptocurrencies – such as Bitcoin.
Nvidia has long been considered the number one provider for graphics chips in high-intensity AI computing, and it has certainly proven its commitment to being “the engine behind the iPhone moment of AI”. While its stance on crypto mining won’t likely change, there is no doubt that Nvidia has planted itself firmly in the conversation when it comes to the development of AI technologies.
Nvidia is an American chip-making giant focused on the design and manufacture of graphical processing units, data centers, and other technology related services. Over its existence, the company has become a leading provider of technology in fields such as gaming consoles, cloud computing, machine learning, and autonomous vehicles. Nvidia is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and is led by CEO Jensen Huang.
Michael Kagan is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Nvidia and has been part of the team since 2017. Some of his professional achievements include being COO at Blloc, VP at Qualcomm, head of Qualcomm’s new business initiatives, and head of product at Cortex Systems. Kagan’s experience, knowledge and ambition have played a huge role in Nvidia’s success over the years and he continues to oversee the company’s technological development.
