OpenAI gave Jensen Huang a shout-out at the GPT-4o launch in a nod to Nivdia’s huge influence on AI

It’s yet another demonstration of just how important Nvidia is to the AI arms race. The company’s H100 GPUs, which can sell for upwards of $40,000 apiece, are used by AI companies to train and run their models.

The likes of OpenAI, Google, and Meta are racing to stockpile H100s as they seek to build ever more powerful AI models, with Meta aiming to have purchased around 350,000 Nvidia GPUs by the end of 2024.

This demand has made Nvidia one of the world’s most valuable companies.

Goldman Sachs described Huang as the “godfather of AI” before the company’s fourth-quarter earnings, which saw Nvidia rake in $22.1 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 265% from the previous year.

Nvidia’s stranglehold over the AI industry is unlikely to change anytime soon. The company unveiled its new “Blackwell” AI chip in March, which Huang said was twice as fast as the H100 and would enable advanced AI features such as turning speech into 3D video.

One person who could challenge Nvidia’s dominant position in the GPU market is Sam Altman. The OpenAI CEO is reportedly trying to raise up to $7 trillion for a venture that would boost the world’s AI chip supply amid a global shortage.

Huang has expressed skepticism over the reported plans, joking in comments at a summit in Dubai that $7 trillion could buy “apparently all the GPUs.”

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside normal working hours.