New York
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\n Nvidia, already the world leader in chips crucial for artificial intelligence, wants to make its technology central to everyday life.\n <\/p>\n
\n That means everything from cell phone towers to robotic factories to self-driving cars, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced in his first-ever keynote address at the company\u2019s GTC AI conference in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.\n <\/p>\n
\n With AI already playing a major role in consumers\u2019 lives and the economy, that kind of ubiquity would cement Nvidia\u2019s role in a tech arms race now spanning the globe.\n <\/p>\n
\n Nvidia\u2019s at a critical juncture. It has partnered with the world\u2019s top companies, has the ear of President Donald Trump and became the first public firm to reach a $4 trillion valuation<\/a> over the summer. But it\u2019s also navigating a bevy of challenges, including escalating concerns<\/a> about whether the AI market is a bubble waiting to burst, growing competition from rival chipmakers AMD<\/a> and Qualcomm<\/a> and trade restrictions.\n <\/p>\n \n In the face of that competition, Nvidia is sending a clear message: While its semiconductors power most of the world\u2019s AI data centers, the company does way more than just design chips.\n <\/p>\n \n The chipmaker\u2019s stock (NVDA<\/a>) was up nearly 3% on Tuesday.\n <\/p>\n \n Nvidia on Tuesday said it\u2019s releasing a blueprint for how other firms should build massive, \u201cgigascale\u201d AI data centers, which it calls \u201cAI factories,\u201d the likes of which Oracle, Microsoft, Google and other leading tech firms are investing billions in. The most powerful and efficient of those, the company says, will include Nvidia chips and software. A new Nvidia AI Factory Research Center in Virginia will use that technology.\n <\/p>\n \n But Tuesday\u2019s updates go far beyond data centers.\n <\/p>\n \n Nvidia announced a partnership with telecom firms T-Mobile and Nokia to build \u201cAI-native\u201d 6G cell phone towers, the next generation of wireless technology. The system will use a new Nvidia product, the Aerial RAN computer, that includes its chips and software. When deployed, the technology is expected to provide a faster, more powerful connection for cell phones and a range of other AI devices, such as speakers, glasses and, eventually, robots.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWireless technology around the world, largely today, is deployed on foreign technologies \u2026 that has to stop, and we have an opportunity to do that, especially during this fundamental platform shift\u201d to 6G, Huang said.\n <\/p>\n \n Nvidia plans to help build 100,000 self-driving cars in partnership with Uber staring in 2027 \u2014 using Nvidia\u2019s chips and \u201cDriveOS\u201d autonomous vehicle operating system \u2014 so more people around the country can get rides from robotaxis.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s providing Palantir with computing power and AI models to help companies build AI agents and systems to automate processes. Lowe\u2019s, for example, will use the tech to create a digital replica of its global supply chain to find opportunities for greater efficiency and cost savings.\n <\/p>\n \n With Siemens, Nvidia is releasing technology to make \u201cdigital twins\u201d of robotic factories. Companies that use it to design, operate and monitor the work of robots doing \u201cdangerous jobs\u201d while helping to fill half a million manufacturing job openings, according to the chipmaker.\n <\/p>\n \n Nvidia is also partnering with the US Department of Energy to build seven new quantum supercomputers with its AI chips to advance the agency\u2019s scientific research.\n <\/p>\n \n Nvidia has framed the current AI era as the next industrial revolution, but most companies that have deployed AI tools aren\u2019t yet seeing a return on that investment, MIT said in an August report<\/a>. And some of the technologies the company is betting on, such as smart glasses and self-driving cars, haven\u2019t yet been widely adopted.\n <\/p>\n \n The conference\u2019s location in Washington, DC, is no accident. Huang has become a central figure in Trump\u2019s push for the US to dominate AI, and that sentiment was on full display during the keynote \u2014 where congressional staffers were offered a special entrance.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe first thing that President Trump asked me for is (to) bring manufacturing back, bring manufacturing back because it\u2019s necessary for national security,\u201d Huang said, adding the company\u2019s AI Blackwell chips are now \u201cin full production\u201d in Arizona.\n <\/p>\n