Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang has big plans for the AI data center industry. During the company’s GTC conference, the chip giant’s executive and co-founder debuted Nvidia’s Spectrum-X and Quantum-X silicon photonics networking systems.
Networking switches connect multiple Nvidia graphics chips together to act as one giant system. Huang says Spectrum-X and Quantum-X photonics can join hundreds and even thousands of GPUs and will enable data center companies to deploy up to 1 million GPU clusters.
That’s a massive jump from the current largest AI supercomputer, xAI’s Colossus, which is made up of 100,000 Nvidia Hopper GPUs. And according to Huang, those million cluster data centers will be connected to other million-dollar data centers nearby to form massive data center facilities.
“Over the next several years, we’re going to be building giant AI factories. Not normal AI factories … ones you see from space,” Huang explained.
The CEO spent a good deal of his time on stage during his GTC keynote explaining how Nvidia’s latest advancements, ranging from Spectrum-X and Quantum-X photonics to its Blackwell Ultra and Vera Rubin superchips, will help the company’s customers, including cloud service providers like Microsoft and Google, operate ever-more-powerful AI systems to drive better revenue opportunities.
“AI factories are directly related to revenue, and if the throughput is not good, your revenue is hurt. If you don’t have enough capacity, your revenue is hurt. If you’re not producing something of great value … your revenue is hurt,” Huang said.
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The CEO equated AI factories to auto plants, explaining how if automakers don’t have the right factories and products on offer, their revenues will suffer.
”This could apply to a car company. If your capacity is not high enough, your revenue is hurt. If your utilization is not good, your revenue is hurt. if you build a car, nobody wants to buy it, your revenue is hurt,” he explained.
“It’s a factory. Except it’s a factory of tokens. It’s a new world. An industrial revolution.”
That industrial revolution won’t just take place inside of data centers though. In addition to its chips for massive server systems, Nvidia also showed off a handful of smaller AI-centered computers, including its mini desktop-sized DGX Spark and full-size desktop-sized DGX Station.
Packed with Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell super chips, the computers are designed for AI developers and researchers. And when paired with the company’s other AI platforms, they make up a new approach to enterprise IT that revolves around AI.
