Artificial intelligence (AI), and one of its heavily researched subsets, machine learning, are both poised to radically transform a multitude of industries, ranging from transportation to financial services. According to Accenture, artificial intelligence will double the annual economic growth rate in 12 developed economies (including the US) and boost labor productivity by up to 40 percent by 2035.
Along with the players that will be able to successfully integrate and offer AI capabilities to their customers, the key benefactors of this growth will be the organizations offering the hardware that makes AI possible. At the moment, the key players in this sector are video card manufacturers, as processing videos and rendering lifelike images that simulate explosions requires the same type of processing that artificial intelligence requires. NVIDIA identified this fact early and facilitated graphics processing unit (GPU) programming by offering a programming tool kit called CUDA in 2006, which deep learning and machine learning researchers used to great effect in testing and developing more deep learning models.
NVIDIA (which has >70% share in GPU sector as of 2016) has benefited immensely from this serendipitous coincidence, and Wall Street has approved of the new direction the organization is taking (NVIDIA stock grew 224% in 2016). The organization’s alignment with key players in high impact industries will help it keep the lead it already possesses. NVIDIA has made key partnerships with leading automobile manufacturers in response to the demand for self-driving cars (for example, it recently announced a partnership with Tesla Motors Inc’s Autopilot system.) It has partnered with Internet giants Facebook and Baidu. It also offers GPUs to many of the more than 3000 AI startups that have sprung up worldwide, as well as to key researchers at leading institutions around the globe.
NVIDIA has benefited immensely from the explosive growth in AI affecting most industries, and it will be interesting to see if the other GPU manufacturers follow suit. Currently, IBM and Intel are making some headway in the area but still lag far behind NVIDIA. The other manufacturers need to start developing their offerings for AI applications now, and designing an innovation and ideation strategy that focuses in this area will be essential to ensure they also benefit from this growth.
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