Nvidia’s Jensen Huang on the White House’s AI initiative

Author: Dean Takahashi / Source: VentureBeat

Above: Jensen Huang of Nvidia talks with the press at CES 2018. He was one of the few presenters to take questions from the press.

Donald Trump isn’t the sort of person you’d expect to be up to speed on artificial intelligence technology. But U.S. tech companies made a pilgrimage to the White House last week to tell somebody that it’s important.

The summit on AI policy called for a combination of industry, academia, and government collaboration to compete with other nations in AI.

AI will be used in everything from self-driving cars to household robots, and it could very well become a game changer for nation states. The stakes are going to be huge, with experts saying trillions of dollars in opportunities and life-saving breakthroughs will be up for grabs. After Nvidia reported stellar earnings that were in part due to fast growth of AI chips, I spoke with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about the importance of pushing a tech policy for AI. We had just a few minutes to talk, but I felt his answers were worth putting on the record.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview. Nvidia executive Ian Buck also had some things to say about the summit.