NVIDIA’s GTC is arguably my favorite vendor show of the year because it encompasses so many things that interest me. More recent versions of this show are fascinating to watch because of the increased use of NVIDIA’s Omniverse technology for the presentations. This technology creates fantastic, photorealistic, virtual active backgrounds that most speakers (including me) would love to have.
GTC is the one event you can attend to see the cutting edge in AI, gaming, robotics and how that technology is being applied across various industries. I’ll cover automotive at length in a future post this week. Let’s talk about what is coming on November 8th, when GTC is slated to begin.
GTC
GTC is a big show which is expected to draw 200K innovators, researchers, thought leaders, and decision-makers, and given it is virtual again; there is no charge. I love that part of these virtual events. I can attend them from home, and they don’t cost anything. Companies and schools presenting in this year’s event include Amazon, Arm, AstraZeneca, Baidu, BMW, Domino’s, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Ford, Google, Kroger, Microsoft, MIT, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, OpenAI, Palo Alto Networks, Red Hat, Rolls-Royce, Salesforce, Samsung, ServiceNow, Snap, Stanford University, Volvo and Walmart.
Some of the more exciting sessions include a panel hosted by my friend and VentureBeat journalist Dean Takahashi. He’ll be talking to top executives from Epic Games, Roblox, Tencent Games, SK Telecom, and NVIDIA as he focuses on the emerging Metaverse. In addition, there will be sessions on things like ML research, the digital transformation of Slovenia, converged AI and scientific computing, AI for cybersecurity, universal scene creation for 3D video, democratizing AI in Africa, the state of AI in Latin America, and building a conversational AI. Finally, there will be sessions on diversity and inclusion, how to improve natural language understanding in computers, and a discussion on AI for smart city professionals.
The Metaverse
Many companies are now talking about the Metaverse, but NVIDIA is one of the firms leading the charge into it. In particular, its Omniverse product is one of the most effective and relatively easy-to-use tools to create and use metaverse content. At the last GTC, NVIDIA recreated, at a granular level, their CEO, Jensen Huang’s, kitchen. This presentation made such a big splash; the company created a focused video of it.
This ability to create highly accurate and fully functional virtual objects that can be dismantled and rebuilt using digital twins of everyday objects is a considerable advancement in our ability to virtually emulate the natural world and create a Matrix-like virtual alternative. It was even more impressive, from my perspective, than painting the Mona Lisa with paintballs, something NVIDIA did at an earlier GTC.
Robotics
I believe robotics is the next frontier for the Technology Industry, but few tech companies are now engaged with robotics to the degree that NVIDIA is. It has taken its advanced capabilities developed for autonomous cars and applied them to this emerging market that Tesla and Lenovo have recently announced they will join.
Robotics has the potential to outstrip the entire existing technology market because not only are they relatively expensive, but they will, once viable, get jobs that humans don’t want to do, and they will eventually be solid in volume into most industry verticals and homes.
Robots will impact every part of our lives, and NVIDIA has demonstrated everything from brains for this class of offerings (including drones and farm equipment) to massive metaverse simulations for robotic training. I’m hoping to see some even more advanced robotic demonstrations this year, given Tesla’s announcement.
Wrapping up:
GTC is my favorite vendor show mainly because it encompasses many of my passions like drones, robots, cars (which I’ll cover later), and artificial intelligence. This show is where you go to meet people virtually on the cutting edge of tomorrow and where you can see things that used to only exist in science fiction. November 8th is coming, and I can hardly wait!
