Nvidia shares rise after CEO Huang says AI computing demand is up

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said demand is up huge this year as artificial intelligence models develop further from answering simple questions to complex reasoning.

“This year, particularly the last six months, demand of computing has gone up substantially,” said Huang on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

The CEO of the AI chip leader was answering a question about what investors ask him most about. Nvidia shares rose about 2% Wednesday, helping to boost the Nasdaq Composite higher.

AI reasoning models are using exponential amounts of computing power but they are also seeing exponential amounts of demand because their results are so good, Huang said.

“The AIs are smart enough that everybody wants to use it,” the CEO said. “We now have two exponentials happening at the same time.”

“Demand for Blackwell is really, really high,” he said of Nvidia’s most advanced GPU. “I think we’re at the beginning of a new buildout, beginning of a new industrial revolution.”  

Nvidia announced last month it will invest $100 billion in OpenAI‘s massive data center buildout. OpenAI is planning to build 10 gigawatts of data centers using Nvidia chips.

The scale of the AI industry’s plans have raised doubts about whether the leading companies can secure the power needed to fuel their ambitions. Ten gigawatts is equivalent to the annual power consumption of 8 million U.S. households, or New York City’s peak baseline summer demand in 2024.

When asked who is winning the AI race, Huang said the U.S. is “not far ahead” of China right now. Beijing is building out the power needed to support AI much faster than the U.S., the CEO said.

“China is way ahead on energy,” Huang said.

The AI industry will need to build new power generation off the electric grid in order to move quickly to meet demand and insulate consumers from rising electricity prices, The CEO said. Data centers should be outfitted with natural gas and then potentially nuclear power at some point in the future, he said.

“We should invest in just about every possible way of generating energy,” Huang said. “Data center self-generated power could move a lot faster than putting it on the grid and we have to do that,” he said.