Nvidia CEO says robotics is chipmaker's biggest opportunity after AI

Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang has revealed that, aside from the booming field of artificial intelligence, robotics stands out as the chipmaker's most promising market for expansion. He emphasized that self-driving vehicles will likely be the first significant commercial application of this emerging technology. During Nvidia's annual shareholders meeting, Huang responded to an attendee's inquiry, stating, "We have numerous growth opportunities within our company, with AI and robotics representing the two most substantial, amounting to a multitrillion-dollar growth potential." In a strategic move last year, Nvidia reorganized its reporting structure to combine its automotive and robotics sectors into a single line item. The latest figures from May indicated that this combined sector generated $567 million in quarterly revenue, accounting for roughly 1% of the company's total earnings. This area has shown a remarkable 72% increase year-over-year. Nvidia has experienced a significant surge in sales over the past three years, driven by relentless demand for its data center graphics processing units (GPUs), essential for powering advanced AI applications such as OpenAI's ChatGPT. The company’s total sales skyrocketed from approximately $27 billion in fiscal 2023 to an impressive $130.5 billion last year, with analysts projecting nearly $200 billion in sales for the current year, according to LSEG. The company's stock reached an all-time high on Wednesday, elevating Nvidia's market capitalization to $3.75 trillion and positioning it just ahead of Microsoft as the world's most valuable company. While robotics currently represents a smaller segment for Nvidia, Huang underscored that these applications will necessitate the company's AI chips for training software, as well as the specialized chips used in autonomous vehicles and robots. Highlighting innovations, Huang mentioned Nvidia's Thrive platform, which includes chips and software for self-driving cars, notably utilized by Mercedes-Benz. He also shared that new AI models designed for humanoid robots, branded as Cosmos, have recently been introduced. "We envision a future where billions of robots, hundreds of millions of autonomous vehicles, and a multitude of robotic factories powered by Nvidia technology become commonplace," Huang stated. Furthermore, Nvidia is broadening its offerings beyond AI chips, integrating software, cloud services, and networking chips to enhance the connectivity of AI accelerators. Huang remarked that Nvidia's identity is shifting, positioning the company as an "AI infrastructure" or "computing platform" provider rather than merely a chip manufacturer. At the annual meeting, shareholders approved the executive compensation plan and confirmed the reelection of all 13 board members, while proposals for a more comprehensive diversity report and changes to shareholder meeting protocols did not receive enough support.