The head of Nvidia provides the initiative with three different supercomputers.
(Photo: IMAGO/ZUMA Wire)
Berlin, Munich Nvidia boss Jensen Huang wants to make a significant contribution to the development of an interactive digital twin of the earth. “We can help,” said the CEO and founder of the world’s most valuable chip company on Monday at a climate conference in Berlin. “We need to know and understand the effects of humans on the earth’s climate,” explained the entrepreneur. Then better and more sustainable decisions could be made.
The American semiconductor supplier, which is currently benefiting greatly from the boom in artificial intelligence (AI), is therefore playing a leading role in the so-called Eve initiative. This wants to bring together climate science, high-performance computers and AI to generate more precise climate data.
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Ultimately, it should be possible to simulate individual streets in large cities or storms, for example. So far this has not been possible. More than 150 international experts are currently part of the Eve initiative, which intends to present its concept at the COP28 world climate conference in Dubai in December.
Specifically, Nvidia is providing the initiative with three different supercomputers that are to work together for the first time. According to Huang, Nvidia also provides the AI for physics simulation, scientific calculations and an advanced data infrastructure.
The climate researchers still have to be patient. Huang made it clear that there is still a long way to go: “We still have a lot to do.” However, he hopes to be able to present an interactive platform in around five years that will simulate and visualize the global atmosphere at a new speed and size .
Huang: “Incredible Vision”
Huang left it open how much the whole thing will cost. Money has never been the reason for Nvidia to call off a meaningful project. When the group became active in the games industry or first considered AI chips, there was no market for it. Success came anyway. In any case, hundreds of Nvidia employees are now working on the climate issue.
At the conference, Huang kept referring to the work of meteorologist Bjorn Stevens, who heads the Atmosphere in the Earth System department at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. Stevens noted that a digital twin is now used in the construction of every factory.
This should also happen with decisions related to the earth. “We need tools that will enable people to see themselves again as part of this world and not just as individuals.”
Huang explained that he is driven by the big picture: “It’s an incredible vision.” A lot of new technologies are coming together. That would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
Nvidia is an interesting partner for science because the chips can process huge amounts of data. The company from Silicon Valley is a leader in so-called “Graphic Processing Units”, or GPUs for short. In it, countless calculations are carried out in parallel. The computers equipped with GPUs are high-performance and are currently being used extensively to develop AI software.
Nvidia grew up with graphics cards for computer gamers. In addition, the processors are used to generate cryptocurrencies.
The AI boom is currently giving Nvidia a huge boost: CEO Huang recently forecast sales of eleven billion dollars for the current quarter – 50 percent more than analysts had expected.
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The text robot ChatGPT in particular has shown the industry what so-called generative AI can do, Huang said recently. Soon, these applications would take up most of the computing power on server facilities around the world. In Berlin he explained that it was only through ChatGPT that the way for self-learning physics simulations was now clear.
“We are increasing our production significantly to meet rising demand,” Huang said.
Investors are excited: Nvidia’s share price has tripled to around $423 since the beginning of the year. As the only chip manufacturer in the world, the Silicon Valley company is worth more than a trillion dollars.
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