Nvidia’s GTC 2025: How CEO Jensen Huang Is Rising the Present’s Viewers

• Nvidia’s GTC convention in San Jose, California, featured CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote on AI advances.
• Huang’s speech highlighted Nvidia’s new AI partnerships, software program instruments, and chip architectures.
• With crowded periods and a bustling exhibition flooring, Nvidia’s immense progress was on show.

The social gathering began as so many do — with pancakes in a parking zone.

I attended Nvidia’s GTC convention, which has taken over downtown San Jose, California, this week. Tuesday was the most important day for the AI juggernaut. At 10 a.m. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang started his keynote deal with, which lasted greater than two and a half hours.

However first, breakfast.

The legendary Denny’s breakfast

It was a cold early morning in San Jose. The “pregame” began at 6:30 a.m. with breakfast from Denny’s, the restaurant the place Huang got here up with the concept for Nvidia. I wanted to know who would present up greater than three hours early for a speech about pc chips.

After I arrived simply earlier than 7 a.m., the road was already substantial. An enormous purple cellular Denny’s kitchen was cooking up “Nvidia bytes” — primarily sausages and pancakes. Diners have been inspired to wrap up their bytes like a taco and add syrup on high, like Huang does.

I chatted with a few of the early birds. Some have been die-hard Nvidia followers. Some have been jet-lagged, having flown within the day earlier than from London or Toronto, so that they have been up anyway. Some wished to get into the SAP Middle as quickly because the stadium doorways opened to keep away from the large traces that may kind the hour earlier than the speech. Some heard a rumor that Huang himself would possibly cease by the tailgate.

And positive sufficient, by 7:25 a.m., muscled males in fits with earpieces began multiplying. With no fanfare, Huang walked out from behind the registration tent carrying his signature uniform, all black and a leather-based moto jacket. The bleary-eyed crowds sprung into motion — telephones up for photographs.

Huang donned an apron and went contained in the meals truck to make some pancakes, as he had as a 15-year-old Denny’s worker.

“At this tempo, I might run the corporate out of enterprise. I was loads sooner,” he mentioned of his chef abilities after rising from the kitchen and instantly assembly CNBC reporter Kristina Partsinevelos and a digital camera crew.

Partsinevelos tried to floor the dialog, however Huang was all jokes.

“You are speaking in regards to the inventory? I am speaking about Denny’s!” he mentioned.

By 8:15 a.m., Huang disappeared into the SAP Middle, the place he turned up on the pre-show panel airing reside contained in the stadium.

As I reached my flooring seat, the panel was giving a reverent retrospective of the corporate — together with its many brushes with failure earlier than AI modified all the things.

Huang ‘and not using a internet’

Main as much as the speech, Nvidia’s accomplice firms have been keen to seek out out if they’d garner a point out on one in every of tech’s brightest phases. One Nvidia worker instructed me that as much as the final minute, a neighborhood battle room of Nvidia staff was tweaking the corporate’s dozens of bulletins.

As soon as the speech begins, it was all in Huang’s fingers.

He kicked off by firing T-shirts into the group from an Nvidia-green T-shirt cannon.

“I simply need you to know that I am up right here and not using a internet. There aren’t any scripts, there is not any teleprompter, and I’ve obtained a variety of issues to cowl. So let’s get began,” Huang mentioned.

The 62-year-old CEO proceeded to blow by way of his scheduled two hours.

He centered on Nvidia’s developments, a flurry of recent partnerships and software program instruments for AI builders, and coming chip architectures that would underpin the computation pace and effectivity that creates new industries. These are already creating what Huang calls “AI Factories.”

He additionally spoke on the challenges of realizing the AI-enabled future he has promised for years. He addressed shortages of recent knowledge to feed AI fashions, limitations within the ever-important coaching part, and power constraints.

The world of computing has reached a “tipping level,” and the “platform shift” to accelerated computing is nicely underway, he mentioned.

The group stayed rapt, though slightly antsy on the two-hour mark. However the ultimate video clip reenergized the room. A Disney-designed robotic named Blue, which regarded like a part of the Star Wars universe, toddled by way of a desert after which ascended — for actual — from beneath the stage.

Then the group jumped to their ft and raised their telephones.

“Have an amazing GTC! Thanks! Hey, Blue, let’s go residence. Good job,” mentioned Jensen.

‘We’ll must develop San Jose’

After the speech, 1000’s of attendees streamed into the downtown San Jose streets. The SAP Middle, which had only some empty seats, holds 17,500, and 25,000 folks have been anticipated at this 12 months’s occasion.

The crowds made their method again to Plaza de Cesar Chavez, briefly renamed GTC Park, to seek out lunch on the procession of meals vehicles on-site every day. Attendees once more needed to wait in lengthy traces.

The lunch traces have been simply one in every of many indicators that GTC has outgrown its conventional residence. Strains to get into the San Jose Conference Middle’s convention periods snaked by way of the hallways.

Nvidia nonetheless calls GTC a developer convention, although the evolution from technical developer confab to critical dealmaking vacation spot was on show at a swanky constructing subsequent to the conference middle devoted solely to enterprise conferences. The elevators could not deal with the amount of individuals always coming out and in.

Even Nvidia workforce members arriving simply behind me balked and deserted ship to relocate once they noticed the traces. Getting from the sidewalk to the assembly room contained in the constructing took 35 minutes.

“The one technique to maintain extra folks at GTC is we will must develop San Jose, and we’re engaged on it,” mentioned Huang throughout the keynote.

Nvidia’s robotic future

Logistics apart, I quickly met with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vp of healthcare, who detailed the numerous methods Nvidia’s accelerated computing is altering how docs and hospitals work.

She mentioned it could possibly be a long time earlier than robots can really carry out surgical procedures with out human help. However firms like Moon Surgical are already creating surgical help robots to carry cameras and instruments with arms that by no means tire. Nvidia additionally works with da Vinci robots, which may suture wounds, amongst different duties.

I then headed again to the conference middle to stroll the exhibition flooring throughout completely happy hour, the place I noticed a few of the expertise Powell championed on show. As a result of Nvidia’s impression spans many industries, the ground showcased vehicles, vacuuming robots, simulated human our bodies prepared for surgical procedure, and all the most important names in cloud computing.

I additionally handed the Nvidia gear retailer, which was booming. A employee there instructed me the 2025 GTC T-shirt and puffer vests have been the most important sellers.

My 12-hour Tuesday on the convention ended on the GTC Night time Market again within the park. The setup was an homage to Huang’s love of Taiwan’s night time markets, with reside music, drinks, native meals like bao buns, yakitori, cupcakes, and a punnily-named “juice” bar sponsored by GPU cloud supplier Coreweave.

If Nvidia has its method, AI goes to proceed to do a variety of exhausting work for us going ahead. However 12 hour–days are right here to remain, not less than for some time. On my method again to my resort — through San Jose bike share previous a now-silent SAP Middle — I considered these two I had noticed contained in the conference middle:

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