NVIDIA GTC keynote starting, 20K people waiting at NHL arena
Jensen Huang's keynote kicks off with massive crowd anticipating Blackwell GPU architecture.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang took the stage at a packed SAP Center—home to the San Jose Sharks NHL team—to kick off the company's 2024 GPU Technology Conference (GTC). The live audience of approximately 20,000 developers, researchers, and industry leaders underscores the event's transformation from a niche graphics conference into the premier global summit for artificial intelligence. The keynote is the launchpad for NVIDIA's most significant annual announcements, setting the roadmap for AI hardware and software.
All eyes are on the anticipated reveal of NVIDIA's next-generation GPU architecture, codenamed 'Blackwell.' Industry analysts expect these new data center chips to deliver massive leaps in AI training and inference performance, potentially solidifying NVIDIA's dominance in the AI accelerator market. Beyond silicon, the keynote will likely detail advancements in the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software suite, Omniverse for 3D simulation, and robotics platforms like Isaac, providing a comprehensive view of the company's full-stack AI strategy.
The scale of the in-person event, a rarity in the post-pandemic tech conference landscape, highlights the intense demand and financial stakes in the AI hardware sector. NVIDIA's announcements will directly influence procurement decisions for cloud providers, AI labs, and enterprises building large language model infrastructure. The keynote sets the competitive tempo for rivals like AMD and Intel, while giving developers the tools they need to build the next generation of AI applications.
- NVIDIA GTC 2024 keynote began with a live audience of 20,000 at San Jose's SAP Center (Sharks NHL arena).
- The event is the expected launch platform for the next-generation 'Blackwell' GPU architecture for AI data centers.
- Announcements will define the AI infrastructure roadmap for cloud providers, enterprises, and developers worldwide.
Why It Matters
NVIDIA's GTC reveals set the pace and price of AI progress, directly impacting what models companies can build and deploy.