Jensen Huang press Q&A: Nvidia’s plans for the Omniverse, Earth-2, and CPUs

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently hosted yet another spring GTC event that drew more than 200,000 participants. And while he didn’t succeed in acquiring Arm for $80 billion, he did have a lot of things to show off to those gathering at the big event.

He gave an update on Nvidia’s plans for Earth-2, a digital twin of our planet that — with enough supercomputing simulation capability within the Omniverse –could enable scientists to predict climate change for our planet. The Earth 2 simulation will require the best technology — like Nvidia’s newly announced graphics processing unit (GPU) Hopper and its upcoming central processing unit (CPU) Grade.

Huang fielded questions about the ongoing semiconductor shortage, the possibility of investing in manufacturing, competition with rivals, and Nvidia’s plans in the wake of the collapse of the Arm deal. He conveyed a sense of calm that Nvidia’s business is still strong (Nvidia reported revenues of $7.64 billion for its fourth fiscal quarter ended January 30, up 53% from a year earlier). Gaming, datacenter, and professional visualization market platforms each achieved record revenue for the quarter and year. He also talked about Nvidia’s continuing commitment to the self-driving vehicle market, which has been slower to take off than expected.

Huang held a Q&A with the press during GTC and I asked him the question about Earth-2 and the Omniverse (I also moderated a panel on the industrial metaverse as well at GTC). I was part of a large group of reporters asking questions.

Here’s an edited transcript of our collective interview.

Question: With the war in Ukraine and