After the Kitchen Conference, GamesBeat Interviewed Huang Renxun: Epidemic, Games, Remote Work and Autonomous Driving

A reporter from GamesBeat, a well-known American technology media outlet VentureBeat, recently interviewed Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about the epidemic, autonomous driving, the development of the gaming industry, and Nvidia's recent growth.

As a well-known American technology media, VentureBeat has always focused on long-form, in-depth technology business analysis and technology news reports. As an independent sub-channel of VentureBeat, GamesBeat mainly reports on entertainment, video games, hardware and other fields.

Recently, GamesBeat reporter Dean Takahashi interviewed Nvidia CEO Huang Renxun and invited Huang to talk about his views on the recent epidemic, remote work, autonomous driving and the development of the gaming industry.

The interview atmosphere was relatively relaxed and the content was relatively broad.

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• The epidemic has brought growth to the gaming industry and accelerated its development. The virtual world we once imagined will be created according to personal personalized settings;

• Mr. Huang supports orderly remote work from home and provides an additional six-month salary increase for employees during the epidemic to cope with the economic downturn caused by the epidemic;

• During the pandemic, NVIDIA was active in the front line of the battle against the epidemic with science and technology, and participated in a lot of work on vaccine development, computing power support, and platform support;

• Although road testing of autonomous driving has been affected by the epidemic, the demand for delivery and transportation in the region is also increasing. Automakers and technology companies should seek new growth points;

• The AI and cloud computing tracks chosen by NVIDIA have achieved growth under the influence of the epidemic. With the release of new products, Mr. Huang believes that the future will be better.

Jen-Hsun Huang:Hello, how are you doing?

GamesBeat:Yes, I'm growing a beard lately.

Jen-Hsun Huang:It's a good beard, you guys have a lot of fun working and you get to play games every day.

GamesBeat:Yeah, that's true. I just happened to be playing Call of Duty: Warzone recently, and it's pretty good. Speaking of the announcement a few days ago, we all thought it was interesting that you put the GPU in the oven to preheat it.

Jen-Hsun Huang:Ha, yeah, the A100 is for preheating the oven.

The epidemic has brought a great leap forward for the gaming industry

GamesBeat:NVIDIA has led many technological changes. Do you think the concept of Metaverse (virtual world) in science fiction novels and games exists? How far away is it from now? Will the development of related technologies be accelerated by this epidemic? If there is a prototype of a virtual world, on what platform will it be created? For example, a game similar to "Fortnite".

Jen-Hsun Huang:Will the world become like the virtual world we imagine? I think the answer is yes. And it is changing now.I believe that in the future there will not be just one virtual world, but a multitude of virtual worlds, each defined by the user.Similar to the scenes in Ready Player One, there will also be worldviews based on Minecraft, Fortnite, or Call of Duty. There are various styles and personalities, such as The Witcher or World of Warcraft. In short, all kinds of genres are exciting to think about.

GamesBeat:This epidemic has led to growth in many games, so will games become the largest field in culture and entertainment?

Jen-Hsun Huang:Cultural entertainment covers a wide range. Watching movies, traveling, vacationing, and skiing all fall into the category of cultural entertainment, and these entertainment and leisure activities will also be affected.

Now that people are staying at home, they will also choose entertainment methods at home, so games will continue to grow, which I am very sure of.

There is nothing wrong with remote work, but you need to report back to the office

GamesBeat:Speaking of home, some companies have recently been implementing a policy of working from home forever. What do you think about remote work at home?

Jen-Hsun Huang:I have no problem with working from home. Many employees currently support continuing to work from home, but there are also situations where they have to go to the office, such as some meetings that require collaboration. In addition, some employees need a laboratory environment, and some may go to the office to meet with colleagues. In this case, they have to take a day off from working from home.Haha, working from home may become the standard in the future, and you may have to take a day off before going to the office.

So whether it’s because of the need for collaboration, social needs, or the need for a laboratory environment, it’s possible to return to the office.But I think if some employees were working from home a few days a week, like three or four days a week, I would be totally fine with that.

And I think digital technology will continue to improve, there is no doubt about that, and we will work hard to achieve this goal. We will continue to assist video conferencing and VR technology, we will have better AI-assisted video conferencing systems and augmented reality video conferencing systems. In this area, there will be all kinds of new innovations.

We have done a lot for our employees and society.

GamesBeat:So what do you think is the biggest help NVIDIA has provided to its employees during the epidemic?

Jen-Hsun Huang:I think the most valuable thing we have done is to provide some subsidies to our employees for the past six months. As we all know, there are nearly 200 million newly unemployed people in the world. Many of these people are our family and friends, and they also have children. Therefore, it is important for us to provide additional welfare subsidies to our employees so that they can help others.Giving employees a raise so they can pay their gardeners and babysitters, and having them tip others a little extra, these kind gestures can go a long way.

Of course, this is only a small part of what our employees do. In addition, the work we do is also very important to science and medicine. We are currently carrying out a lot of scientific anti-epidemic work on the front line.We have built a computational defense system for the virus that can help develop a vaccine as quickly as possible and also prepare for the next similar situation.These efforts are important not only to our employees, but also to all of humanity. We are also proud that 500,000 gamers have contributed their computing power to participate in the computing power crowdfunding project (Extended reading:《NVIDIA calls on global gamers: Contribute your computers and join the computing power to fight the epidemic》).

Another work that I think has made a great contribution is that we have robots roaming in hospitals, delivering medicines, and disinfecting corridors and rooms. Then, these studies are all aimed at reducing the burden on medical staff and allowing AI to participate in the treatment process. These are all breakthroughs that I think we have made, and we are on the front line of the fight against the epidemic.I am personally very sad to see the impact of the epidemic on the world right now, but this is also a good time for us to step up and contribute.

Although some aspects of autonomous driving are stagnant, there is still hope for growth

GamesBeat:I noticed that the epidemic has also delayed the development of autonomous driving. Do you think now is a time window for this technology to become more solid?

Huang Renxun: I think the market for self-driving taxis has indeed been affected by the epidemic. Road testing is not possible yet, but road testing is only one part of autonomous driving.We can see that Tesla has found a good business model, using software to realize commercial realization. This is also an opportunity for the entire automotive industry, allowing the business model of the entire automotive industry to change from the traditional sales model.

They can benefit from advances in smart hardware, and I think the leading car companies in the automotive industry are still moving forward at a rapid pace.Interestingly, while driverless taxis are likely to be affected, the need to assist supermarket deliveries is also being created.

Especially in cities, robots are used for delivery and handling, so many unmanned delivery is still developing rapidly. For example, a large campus is basically like a huge factory. Currently, handling and delivery are done by people, but in the future, robots will do this job. So there will be many different types of last-mile delivery or autonomous cruising robots on campus.

GamesBeat:What do you think about the economic recovery in the second half of the year?

Jen-Hsun Huang:Well, I don't have any deeper insights than anyone else, I think we are very lucky.

First, we benefit from the powerful economic power of cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

Second, we have just released the A100 product, which has great potential and will give us a certain degree of immunity.

Third, as a company in the fields of AI, cloud computing, and robotics, we have also benefited from the fact that everyone is staying at home and working from home due to the epidemic. We need high-performance workstations and also need to play games for entertainment.

So our diversification also makes us very lucky. We have been working on future-oriented things before, and these future-oriented things have been accelerated because of this epidemic. We are very lucky, but we will look forward to the result of economic recovery together.

GamesBeat:Mr. Huang, thank you very much for accepting the interview.

Jen-Hsun Huang:It's been a pleasure chatting with you, and I hope everything goes well. Play more games, take care of yourself, and stay safe.

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