Synopsys CEO Sassine Ghazi (left) and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (Image: Synopsys)
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake?
Nvidia Corp.’s stratospheric sales growth and lofty stock valuation cannot mask its vulnerability to the semiconductor industry’s roiling and disruptive dynamics. The company now has targets on its back from rivals and even some customers smarting from the elevated pricing of its products. Can Nvidia string together a multi-year, unbroken grip on the AI market and break new ground to maintain its enviable performance?
Jensen Huang should be getting tired of posing for pictures.
At GTC2024, Nvidia’s GPU technology conference in San Jose, Calif., Nvidia’s founder and CEO, Monday, delivered his keynote speech in a rock-concert setting to an audience of more than 10,000 people — a record turnout for the annual event. Enthralled by Huang, many of them, including trade and mainstream journalists, made a beeline for the keynote and giddily took selfies with him.
There is no bigger celebrity in the semiconductor world today than Huang. Even other CEOs in the electronics industry are enamored with him.
“He is a giant-rock star,” said Sassine Ghazi, president and CEO of electronic design automation (EDA) and semiconductor IP supplier Synopsys Inc., speaking Wednesday at SNUG (Synopsys User Group) in Santa Clara, his company’s annual event for chip designers. Huang, an invited speaker at SNUG, swiftly returned the compliment when he joined Ghazi on the stage. “Synopsys is the most consequential company in our industry today,” Huang said. “Without Synopsys tools we will not be able to do what we do.”