Counting Down to NVIDIA GTC 2024: All Eyes on the New Blackwell GPUs and AI
NVIDIA GTC 2024 will begin early next week, and CEO Jensen Huang could introduce the company’s new Blackwell architecture chips and more. NVIDIA’s GTCs are usually reserved for enterprise products, so expect more on that alongside over 900 sessions, hundreds of exhibitions, and workshops conducted over five days. Learn more about the event here.
- Next week, NVIDIA will take center stage around AI discussions, as its chips are in AI development.
- NVIDIA GTC 2024 will begin early next week, and CEO Jensen Huang could introduce the company’s new Blackwell architecture chips and more.
- Here’s more you can expect from NVIDIA’s annual flagship conference this year.
Clad in his trademark leather jacket, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recently spoke about NVIDIA’s chips and the company’s mantra during the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) Economic Summit. Underlining the relevance of NVIDIA chips, he said, “Even when the competitor’s chips are free, it’s not cheap enough.”
That’s bold. NVIDIA’s relevant graphics processing unit (GPUs) designs and the value they add, more so than the quality or price, have propelled the American semiconductor company to a $2.14 trillion valuation—the third largest in the world.
Huang explains: “People who buy and sell chips think about the cost of chips. People who operate data centers think about the cost of operations. Our time to deployment, our performance, our utilization, and our flexibility across all these applications in total allow our operations cost, the total cost of operations (TCO); our TCO is so good that even when the competitor’s chips are free, it’s not cheap enough.”
An interesting detail Huang revealed during the SIEPR Economic Summit was that the company follows an “open book” policy, meaning it shares existing as well as upcoming GPU designs with customers—even those using NVIDIA chips to build new ones that may replace them.
While NVIDIA’s customers may have a rough idea about where the company is heading in terms of new products, the rest of us have to wait until the next NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference (GTC) to get a glimpse of what Huang’s techies are cooking.
Fortunately, the wait is almost over, as NVIDIA GTC 2024 is scheduled to commence next week.
When and Where Is NVIDIA GTC 2024?
NVIDIA GTC 2024 is a five-day event starting March 17, 2024. Here’s the broad-level breakdown of the activities:
- Workshops will be conducted on all days, i.e., March 17 – 21, 2024
- The AI Conference and Expo is slated for four days, i.e., March 18 – 21, 2024
- The Keynote address will be held on March 18, 2024
NVIDIA GTC 2024 will be hosted at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, CA, as an in-person conference for the first time since 2019. The keynote address will take place at the SAP Center.
NVIDIA GTC 2024 Price
The table below shows all available passes to NVIDIA GTC 2024 and their respective prices:
|
Passes |
Four-Day Pass (Regular Rate) | Four-Day Pass (On-Site Rate) | One-Day (Regular Rate) | One-Day (On-Site Rate) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conference + Training | $2,495 | $2,695 | $1,245 |
$1,345 |
|
Conference |
$2,095 | $2,495 | $1,045 | $1,245 |
| Exhibits + Keynote | $745 | $795 | $75 |
$75 |
Those planning to attend NVIDIA GTC 2024 virtually can register for free to access sessions on-demand, although only a limited number of live sessions will be accessible.
Additionally, the DLI (Deep Learning Institute) Workshops on March 17 are priced at $496 for in-person registration and $149 for virtual attendance.
See More: AI and Beyond: Insights From NVIDIA Special Address at CES 2024
What To Expect at NVIDIA GTC 2024?
1. Product and service updates
First, imagining NVIDIA GTC without a new round of hardware offerings is hard. The company should double down on the oh-so-successful Hopper architecture for AI inferencing with the Blackwell architecture, expectedly the B100.
It is unclear if NVIDIA will introduce new workstations or data center offerings, but it is unlikely that the company will unveil any consumer products.
On the software front, NVIDIA’s bets on Omniverse and Enterprise AI have so far yielded positive feedback. In collaboration with Microsoft, NVIDIA announced the availability of the Omniverse Cloud on Azure. It’s a no-brainer to expect the company to offer related updates.
NVIDIA GTC 2024 could also serve as an avenue where the company finally updates the tech community on the fruits of its collaboration with MediaTek at Computex 2023. The partnership centers around the automotive sector, but it isn’t a stretch to consider that the two companies will harness their semiconductor prowess for mobile devices.
2. Sessions and speakers
As usual, NVIDIA GTC 2024 will have Huang delivering the keynote address. The conference will have 900 sessions, 1,700 presenters, more than 300 exhibits, over 20 technical workshops, and more, all or most of which will be centered around artificial intelligence (AI).
The NVIDIA GTC 2024 delivered by Huang will be two hours long. Expect him to talk about the advancements in AI and what the future looks like with this technology.
The rest of the 900+ sessions will cover 16 topics: augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR), robotics, networking, simulation, cybersecurity, and more. Some notable speakers include:
- Brad Lightcap, chief operating officer, OpenAI
- Sébastien Bubeck, vice president, Microsoft GenAI
- Vincent Vanhoucke, distinguished scientist and senior director of robotics, Google DeepMind
- Joelle Pineau, vice president of AI research, Meta
- Dr. Fei-Fei Li, professor of computer science and HAI co-director, Stanford University
- Dr. Priscilla Chan, cofounder and co-CEO, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
- Stefan Goebel, senior vice president, chief of staff, product engineering and head of strategic engineering partnerships, SAP Labs
- Belinda Neal, chief operating officer for core engineering and head of engineering partnerships, Goldman Sachs
- Moises Hernandez-Fernandez, vice president of machine learning center of excellence, JPMorgan Chase
- Shan Jegatheeswaran, vice president and global head of MedTech Digital, Johnson & Johnson
- Rodolphe Katra, vice president of AI, Medtronic
- Aaron Saunders, CTO, Boston Dynamic
The conference will also have product demonstrations, exhibitions, and expositions. Don’t miss the generative AI interactive experiences Generative AI Theater, Generative AI Pavilion, and the Generative AI Installation.
What do you expect from NVIDIA GTC 2024? Share with us on LinkedIn, X, or Facebook. We’d love to hear from you!
Image source: Shutterstock
MORE EVENTS
