Nvidia is one of the world’s biggest computer chip companies, best known for its line of graphics processing units or GPUs. Although the firm had its start in the world of consumer gaming, in recent years it’s grown into a true tech titan with diverse investments in self-driving cars, cloud computing, supercomputing, and artificial intelligence. The parallel processing power of Nvidia’s GPUs has proven to be particularly good at machine learning tasks, and its chips are in high demand not only from AI researchers but any business with an interest in artificial intelligence. From 2015 onwards, Nvidia’s share price grew sharply, allowing the company to make some key acquisitions, including UK chip designer ARM, which it announced it would purchase in September 2020 for $40 billion. Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, who is currently the firm’s CEO. Known for his leather jackets and upbeat corporate presentations, Huang is a familiar figure to anyone interested in tech.
And we’re back! Yesterday was Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the US, and now we again have our full team, and just in time, with a lot of news today from Nvidia, Google, and more.
It’s also Amazon Prime Early Access Day 1 of 2 for those who celebrate, and this afternoon Mark Zuckerberg will present a new high-end VR headset at Meta’s Connect event.
Nvidia GPU owners have been complaining of stuttering and poor frame rates with the latest Windows 11 update, but thankfully there’s a fix. Nvidia has identified an issue with its GeForce Experience overlay and the Windows 11 2022 Update (22H2). A fix is available in beta from Nvidia’s website.
Need to fill your video game, VR world, or project render with 3D chaff? Nvidia’s latest AI model could help. Trained on 2D images, it can churn out customizable 3D objects ready to import and tweak.
The model seems rudimentary (the renders aren’t amazing quality and seem limited in their variety), but generative AI models like this are only going to improve, speeding up work for all sorts of creative types.
Nvidia finally announced the 40-series—specifically the more expensive and more powerful 4090 and 4080. But big power means these are some big cards and that could be a problem for PC builders who prefer smaller, minimalist looks for their PCs. Builders at the /sffpc subreddit, that focuses on small form factor pc builds, are already worried.
A 40-hour countdown stream by Nvidia includes Easter eggs like a Discord “User40” profile with an Ada Lovelace photo. Lovelace is Nvidia’s rumored next-gen GPU architecture, and all the hints of 40 all but confirm the GeForce RTX 40-series will launch tomorrow during a special broadcast at GTC. There’s even a Ti or Tie joke thrown in for good measure.
