NVIDIA and the Move to a Virtual AI Future

NVIDIA recently held a Q&A with its visionary CEO Jensen Huang.  

While the Q&A this week focused on NVIDIA’s announcements at Computex, his opening and closing comments caught my attention. The building that Jensen was broadcasting from named Voyager (Star Trek?) was designed using a supercomputer. He pointed to NVIDIA Omniverse, much like Bill Gates pointed to .NET as the foundation for massive change.  

Let’s talk about how these two things could come together to redefine our collective enterprise futures.  

Omniverse As A Platform

Omniverse is NVIDIA’s effort to create something like was depicted in the movie “The Matrix.” Its goal is to create a virtual world where you could run simulations, collaborate and play. This NVIDIA Holodeck concept is compelling. 

Coupled with a conversational artificial intelligence (AI), an AI that fully understands the language you are speaking and can accurately determine and execute what you want from your words, this world will have a near-magical aspect. I’m using the magic metaphor because, once in Omniverse, the conversational AI will act very much like a genie, creating virtually anything you can ask for and fit it elegantly into the virtual Omniverse environment that increasingly will mirror the real world.  

Benefits Of A World-Scale Virtual Twin

As it matures and more physical aspects of the world are digitized in Omniverse, the ability to do real-time simulation will increase. In its ultimate form, many, if not most of us, will have digital twins in that universe so that related simulations can better anticipate the social impact of possible plans and strategies.  

You’ll increasingly be able to run real-time simulations just by describing the information you need to decide how deep learning AIs evolve to understand better what needs to be done to generate the answer the user needs.  

The Anticipated Move To Mixed Reality Collaboration

This Omniverse move also promises to completely change the collaboration dynamic, which still favors in-person meetings over video conferencing. The Omniverse version of the Holodeck approach to collaboration is already relatively mature and is simply waiting for a Zoom-like front end and better virtual reality (VR) headgear to transform into the collective power it will eventually become.  

What will make this better than meeting in person is creating in 3D virtual space, AI-driven real-time visual representations of the speaker’s points. Even local attendees will have to enter the virtual space to see the full effect of the presentation, and the critical unmet needs being missed by current tools can finally be addressed.

These needs include making side conversations (which can be better secured and made less disruptive virtually better) and engaging in after-meeting socialization events held in virtual breakout rooms and entertainment areas possible with Omniverse. In the future, you can imagine that rather than playing a round of golf, the attendees may break into groups for a Fortnite game instead, all without leaving their home offices.  

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Mixed Reality Overlay

As we increasingly move to use mixed reality (MR) as our predominant way to interact, the related headset will eventually evolve from an occasional use-focused device to something worn throughout the day. While this move to a more comprehensive mixed reality experience is still out toward the end of the decade, it will begin the blend of natural and virtual elements to no longer need things like signs as any surface can become a display platform. You might not even need a surface, granted spam likely would become a far more significant problem in that future timeframe, and tools blocking that change would become far more attractive. This advancement suggests that by 2050 our perceived universe will blend real physical devices and virtual elements, making it increasingly difficult to tell one from the other.  

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Wrapping Up  

What Jensen Huang spoke about in a side comment during his Computex Q&A session is potentially more powerful than moving to the mainframe, moving to PCs and even moving to the cloud.  

Omniverse anticipates a world-scale effort initially to create digital twins of everything and establish a constant and accurate mixed reality clone of the planet. We can do more accurate simulations and more effective collaborations without having to travel. We are on a path to entirely alter the reality we perceive with broad implications to how we design, model and make decisions after mid-decade.  

I’m talking about an unprecedented level of change that will eventually alter nearly every aspect of the world around us. While the success of this effort is far from certain, given NVIDIA’s past high level of execution, it would be unwise not to take this attempt for a world-changing platform seriously. And firms are already looking at how to accomplish this without headsets or goggles. 

While we aren’t yet ready for the bending of our realities, it is coming regardless. 

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