Nvidia CEO Calls ChatGPT the ‘iPhone Moment’ for AI

Many ink barrels have been spilled recently about ChatGPT. The conversational AI-powered chatbot is seen as the next big thing in computing, and it’s ignited an arms race between industry behemoths, including Google and Microsoft. Now Nvidia’s CEO has weighed in on the situation, declaring it akin to the iPhone’s arrival. That is to say, it’s a product that shows even the least tech-savvy person what AI can do. The iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone, but it was arguably the first that was easy for everyone. It’s what sparked the current mobile era; presumably, ChatGPT could do the same for AI.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made the remarks at a recent Q&A. He spoke at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley as part of the university’s Dean’s Speaker series. A student asked him about his thoughts on ChatGPT in general, causing Huang to launch into an extended dissertation on what it means for the industry. Huang was effusive in his praise for the technology.

The crux of why it’s so revolutionary, according to Huang, is that millions of people are using it in totally different ways. Some people have it write poems, while others ask it to write Python code. Despite this variance, everyone finds it to be a delightful product. “When was the last time we saw a piece of technology that is so versatile that it can solve problems and surprise people in so many ways so often?” asked Huang.

“This is the iPhone moment of artificial intelligence,” Huang said. “This is the time when all those ideas within mobile computing and all that, it all came together in a product that everyone kinda [says], I see it, I see it.”

Summarizing his thoughts, Huang did not hold back. “What OpenAI has done, what the team over there has done, genuinely, one of the greatest thing that has ever been done for computing.”

Though most rational people wouldn’t disagree with his comments, Nvidia is also poised to reap the benefits of AI’s rise in popularity. The company makes some of the most powerful GPUs for AI training. It’s also already been declared a leader in the AI arms race. Bloomberg recently noted that Huang has seen his wealth rise in 2023 faster than any other US billionaire. His rise in income is closely tied to the company’s advancements in products for the AI market. ChatGPT was reportedly trained on over 10,000 Nvidia GPUs as well. Its sudden explosion in popularity is sure to fuel even more GPU purchases by the company behind it — OpenAI — and its competitors.

ChatGPT is an absolute blockbuster product that has taken the tech world by storm. According to UBS and Yahoo Finance, it took only two months to acquire 100 million users. That’s the fastest time in the history of consumer applications. For context, it took TikTok nine months to get that many users. OpenAI’s growth has been so explosive it resulted in Microsoft investing $10 billion in the company. It’s also begun integrating ChatGPT into Bing search results. That spurred Google to launch its own conversational AI named Bard last week.

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