Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says AI computing demand surged in past six months

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Wednesday that artificial intelligence (AI) computing demand has surged "substantially" over the past six months, as models move from just answering questions to reasoning.

Speaking to CNBC, Huang said AI models are evolving and consuming vast amounts of computing power. "The AIs are intelligent enough that everyone wants to utilise them," he said, describing "two exponentials happening at the same time," i.e., AI systems requiring more compute power and demand skyrocketing because of their impressive capabilities.

"I think we’re at the beginning of a new build-out, the beginning of a new industrial revolution, and it’s going to be exciting times," he said.


The surge in demand centres around Nvidia's latest Blackwell architecture. Huang said the "demand for Blackwell is incredibly high." The advanced chips, featuring 208 billion transistors and new AI acceleration technologies, have become the backbone of data centres powering everything from OpenAI's ChatGPT to smaller models.

The computing demand surge comes as infrastructure investments are increasing across the AI sector. Nvidia announced plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI in September to deploy 10 gigawatts of AI systems.

"This is an enormous undertaking," Huang said of the OpenAI deal, which represents between four and five million GPUs and marks "the biggest AI infrastructure project in history." The first phase will launch in 2026 using Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin platform.

Earlier this month, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced a landmark multi-billion-dollar agreement with OpenAI and turned up the heat on Nvidia, which currently dominates the chip space. The partnership sent AMD shares rallying over 25% in early trading.

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Industry analysts project global AI infrastructure spending could reach $2 trillion by 2026. Several billion-dollar circular deals in the AI space have them worried about a bubble. Most of these deals are centred around Nvidia and OpenAI, raising concerns that an increasingly complex and interconnected web of business transactions is artificially propping up the trillion-dollar AI boom.

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