The Hindu Business Line : Future moves

From a start-up in a single bedroom outfit 14 summers ago, Nvidia, the fabless semiconductor and graphics processor provider, has emerged a $4-billion company.

It is on a growth trajectory, both organic and inorganic, to become a major player in the technology industry, powering digital and entertainment devices, graphics-intensive applications and mobile phones.

The company has made two acquisitions in India, Pace in Pune and PortalPlayer with operations in Hyderabad. It now operates out of three centres —Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune.

The Co-Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, Nvidia Corporation, Jen Hsun Huang, was in India recently to commission the company’s new facility in Hyderabad. In a chat with eWorld, he provided insights into likely changes in the sector and the Nvidia gameplan.

The company has shipped over 500 million processors and expects this number to go up to a few billions of computing devices.

It employs 4,500 people globally, and 700 of them in India, from 30 people three years ago. The growth in India has been significant and poised to continue, says Jen.

The company is working towards a single chip computer solution that can handle all applications and serve as a personal computer. This is likely to catalyse a revolution for normal devices. This will handle rich media. This cannot be termed disruptive. It is something all companies would gradually look forward to and drift to.

In PortalPlayer, Nvidia found that they were the first to develop a single chip computer or device that can handle various computing capabilities. Therefore, it became the right fit for acquisition, he says.

Trends in the making

“My experience shows that in five years time, we will not have mobile phones. We will actually have hand-held digital devices with personal computing capability that could offer mobile phone option,” he explains.

“By the year 2010, this concept of a PC also handling mobile phones capability will get mainstream and we see Nvidia playing a big role in this shift. We have deep relationships with mobile phone companies such as Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Nokia and others and believe that all of them will look at this changing pattern of usage seriously,” he says.

The trend of true convergence that enables streaming of video seamlessly and offers data capabilities with rich media would get mainstream by 2010-2011. While smarter small digital devices will proliferate, they are likely to challenge the very existence of larger laptops, he says.

“While I don’t see these devices totally replacing the laptops, certainly a lot of tasks now handled by these laptops could be handled by these devices,” he says.

“Our chip Goforce is an example of such devices. Other chips will be more versatile. I use Blackberry that handles most of my tasks while on the move. And yet I require a laptop to handle different tasks. For some more time, these two will co-exist. But down the line, smart phones will challenge them,” he says.

Investment in India

“We invested $100 million initially and expanded this to $250 million in three years. Going forward, we expect to invest up to $1 billion in India over 10 years’ time frame,” says Jen. Additionally, the company has invested over $1 billion in research and plans to continue investing.

“Acquisitions continue to play a big role in Nvidia’s business plan. In India, Nvidia has grown through two acquisitions and continues to constantly evaluate strategic fits,” he says.

vrishi@thehindu.co.in

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