OPEN SCIENCE:
International collaboration on math and science will persevere even if the incoming Trump administration imposes strict controls, Nvidia’s CEO said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said on Saturday that global cooperation in technology would continue even if the incoming US administration imposes stricter export controls on advanced computing products.
US president-elect Donald Trump, in his first term in office, imposed restrictions on the sale of US technology to China citing national security — a policy continued under US President Joe Biden. The curbs forced Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, to change its product lineup in China.
The US chipmaking giant last week reported record-high quarterly revenue on the back of strong AI chip demand, though investors are wary of US-China tensions reheating during a new Trump term.
Photo: Holmes CHAN / AFP
“Open science in global collaboration, cooperation across math and science has been around for a very long time. It is the foundation of social advancement and scientific advancement,” Huang said during a visit to Hong Kong.
Cooperation is “going to continue. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the new administration, but whatever happens, we’ll balance simultaneously compliance with laws and policies, continue to advance our technology and support and serve customers all over the world,” he said.
“We’ll continue to do that and we’ll be able to do that just fine,” he added.
The head of the world’s most valuable company was speaking in the financial hub after receiving an honorary doctorate in engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
During the visit, Huang participated in a fireside chat with the university’s council chairman Harry Sham (沈向洋) in front of an audience of students and academics.
Asked about the huge energy requirements of graphics processing units — the chips behind AI — Huang said: “If the world uses more energy to power the AI factories of the world, we are a better world when that happens.”
“The goal of AI is not for training, the goal of AI is for inference,” he said, adding that AI could discover, for instance, new ways to store carbon dioxide in reservoirs, new wind turbine designs and new materials for storing electricity.
People should start thinking about placing AI supercomputers slightly off the power grid and let them use sustainable energy and in places away from populations, he said.
“My hopes and dreams is that in the end, what we all see is that using energy for intelligence is the best use of energy we can imagine,” Huang said.
Earlier on Saturday, Huang told graduates that “the age of AI has started” in a speech after receiving the honorary degree.
“A new computing era that will impact every industry and every field of science,” he said.
The Taiwan-born entrepreneur, 61, also told graduates that he wished he had started his career at this time.
“The whole world is reset. You’re at the starting lines with everybody else. An industry is being reinvented. You now have the instruments, the instruments necessary to advance science in so many different fields,” Huang said.
“The greatest challenges of our time, unimaginable challenges to overcome in the past, all of a sudden seem possible to tackle,” he said.
