Nvidia, the California-based graphics chip manufacturer and technology company, was officially crowned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as the smartest company in the world for its innovation in fields such as AI, deep learning and AI.
The list of “smart” companies produced by MIT included some of the most innovative companies in the technology and manufacturing sectors such as SpaceX, Tesla and Amazon but according to MIT Technology Review editor David Rotman, Nvidia’s explosive growth in the AI and Blockchain markets gave the firm an edge over other companies.
"The list is our best guess as to which firms will be the dominant companies of the future. Amazon and Facebook and Google are on it, but so are plenty of newcomers,” wrote Rotman.
Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia, recently revealed the company’s latest deep learning-specific chip the Tesla P100, which the company spent over $2 bln in research and development to manufacturing.
The Tesla P100 chip has a total of 15 bln transistors, three times more than Nvidia’s previous chips. The Tesla P100 was distributed to researchers and developers at Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and other leading technology companies that are leading deep learning research. Chips like Tesla P100 are implemented to further enhance existing AI and deep learning technologies such as AlphaGo.
Nvidia’s success in AI development and chip manufacturing has also led to an increase in the market and investors’ confidence. In quarter one of 2017, Nvidia saw a drastic increase in the value of its stocks mostly due to the company’s progress with AI and deep learning.
Huang said:
“Accelerating our growth is deep learning, a new computing model that uses the GPU’s (graphics processing unit) massive computing power to learn artificial intelligence algorithms. Its adoption is sweeping one industry after another, driving demand for our GPUs. Our new Pascal GPU (graphics processing unit) architecture will give a giant boost to deep learning, gaming and VR (virtual reality). Pascal processors are in full production and will be available later this month.”
Next will be Bitcoin and Ethereum
Nvidia has already made significant progress in the AI, deep learning and chip manufacturing sectors. In the upcoming months, Nvidia aims to produce cryptocurrency mining-specific chips that could further optimize the mining process of major digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Although AMD, another chip manufacturing giant, has already begun to develop cryptocurrency-specific mining chips, analysts including researchers from RBC Capital Markets explained that Nvidia has a higher chance of succeeding in a shorter timeframe, given the company’s success in the AI and Deep Learning industries.
RBC Capital Markets researchers said in a note:
"Given Nvidia's performance lead across numerous categories (gaming and data center), we think the Company is best positioned to become the market leader in GPU-based cryptocurrency mining if a new product is released."
Currently, the Bitcoin mining equipment manufacturing industry is concentrated in China, with Bitmain leading the industry. The entrance of multi-billion dollar conglomerates such as Nvidia will help the Bitcoin mining industry and mining equipment manufacturing market to evolve at an exponential rate.