Odaily reported that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made fresh comments on the state of the chip industry during a broad discussion on artificial intelligence with Axios co-founder Mike Allen, saying the sector is not headed for a downturn anytime soon.
Huang said the semiconductor business has long been known for boom-and-bust cycles, but argued that the current moment is different. Asked whether the industry is about to enter a slump, he replied, “No, not for some time to come. This time is different, because this is not driven by demand.”
Huang says the current AI boom is not consumer-led
According to Huang, previous chip upcycles were largely tied to consumer demand, which had long been the main force behind the industry. He said the current AI expansion is instead being driven by industry demand, which points to a change in the core technology of computing.
Huang described the shift as the buildout of a new global infrastructure layer. The world already has energy systems, the internet, roads and railways, he said, and now needs an additional “intelligence layer” built on top of them. That new layer, in turn, depends on chips.
Semiconductor industry may need to become 5x to 10x larger
Huang said he believes the semiconductor industry may need to grow five to ten times from its current size. In his view, the industry is simply too small right now, with shortages appearing across the board.
He said the shortage is not cyclical and is not the result of consumer demand. Rather, he characterized it as a fundamental infrastructure issue, which is why the whole industry remains in shortage and why its scale will need to expand by several multiples.
The remarks were cited by Jin10, according to Odaily.