Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, recently kicked off a European tour, making a compelling case for closer AI partnerships. He stressed that Nvidia isn’t just in the chip business—it’s building the AI infrastructure Europe needs to thrive.
During his tour, Huang met UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, and he won over audiences at Nvidia’s GTC event in Paris. At London Tech Week, the excitement was palpable as attendees queued up like they were at a big concert, even snagging exclusive GTC Paris T-shirts from an on-site merchandise store.
Huang painted a clear picture of Nvidia’s role as more than just a chip maker. Describing the company as an infrastructure provider, he compared AI to essentials like electricity. “We believe that if Europe wants to compete, it must come together and build a shared capability,” he said at the Viva Tech conference in Paris.
A highlight of the visit was a new partnership with French startup Mistral, designed to develop an AI cloud powered by Nvidia’s GPUs. Huang’s focus on “sovereign AI”—the idea of building domestic data centres to serve local populations—struck a chord with European policymakers.
He also touched on the challenges posed by U.S. export controls, which have limited Nvidia’s access to the Chinese market. Huang noted that while Huawei may be a generation behind technologically, it makes up for it in capacity, implying that if the U.S. steps back, Huawei’s scale will more than cover the gap.
Looking forward, Huang is optimistic about advances in robotics, autonomous vehicles, and quantum computing. He believes that this decade might well mark a turning point, with quantum computing potentially taking on complex problems that today’s machines simply can’t handle.
