NVIDIA couldn’t sell AI chips until OpenAI appeared

NVIDIA head Jensen Huang shared an interesting story that today looks like a fateful moment in the development of modern technologies.

Imagine 2016. This was when artificial intelligence was just a quirky idea for most of the technology world. NVIDIA had created an advanced supercomputer, specifically optimized for artificial intelligence tasks, but faced complete lack of interest. 0 customers, 0 hype, just misunderstanding of this technology’s potential.

At this moment, a small, unknown startup appears on the horizon, showing interest in their development. Huang was excited about the possibility of finally selling at least 1 graphics card. But then he discovered an unexpected twist — the startup was a non-profit organization.

But there was nothing to be done, and Jensen personally took the graphics card and went to deliver it to this not-wealthy client. The name of this startup? OpenAI. The organization that would later create ChatGPT and cause a real revolution in the technology world.