In Monday's keynote at Nvidia's GTC 2024 event, CEO Jenson Huang reiterated the phrase “AI factory.”
“In the last industrial revolution, the raw material that went into factories was water,” Huang told TechCrunch in an interview after his keynote. “And that product was electricity.”
He was comparing this to the concept of a data center, which is purely a treasure trove of money, turning raw materials into something else of value. “A new industrial revolution is occurring in these regions. [server] Rooms: I call them AI factories,” Huang said. “The raw materials that are input are data and electricity. What comes out of that is data tokens. The tokens are invisible and distributed around the world. They are very valuable.”
That distinction makes a lot of sense in a world where Nvidia stands to gain a lot if it can convince companies to think differently about data centers and AI tools. “Last time, data centers were built into your cost centers and capital expenditures. You think of it as a cost. But when it comes to factories, it's a different story. It makes money,” he said. “In the new world of generative AI, there are new forms of factories.”