Ian Buck, Nvidia’s Vice President of Hyperscale and High-Performance Computing, Felt a Twing of Nostalgia During Ceo Jeng’s Keynote Presentation at their GTC Conference in March.
Huang Spent Nearly Eight Minutes on A Single Slide Listening Software Products.
“This Slide is genuinely my favorite,” Said huang onstage in front of 17,000 People. “A long time ago – 20 years ago – this slide was all we had,” The Ceo Continued.
BUCK SAID HE WAS INSTANTLY TRANSTLY BACK TO 2004 GOD HE STARTED BUILDING THE COMPANY’S BREACTHROUGH SOFTWARE, CALLED Compute Device Architecture.
Back then, The Team Had Two People and Two Libraries. Today, Cuda Supports More than 900 Bookstores and Artificial Intelligence Models. Each Library Corresponds to an Industry Using Nvidia Technology.
“It is a passionate and very personal Slide for me,” Buck Told Reporters the Next Day.
The 48-YEAR-Old’s Contribution to Nvidia is Hard-Coded Into The Company’s History. But his influence is just beginning. Cuda is the platform from which nvidia jumped to, at one point, 90% market share in he computing. Cuda is how the Company Defends Its moat.
Cuda Started with two libraries. It now has more than 500.
AP Photo/NIC COURY
One Architecture to Rule say all
Dion Harris, Nvidia’s Senior Director of High-Performance Computing and AI Factory Solutions, Sometimes Forgets that he’s in the room with break Dr. Ian Buck. THEN IT HITS HIM THAT HIS BOSS, AND FRIEND, is a computing legend.
SINCE BUCK’S Undergrad Days at Princeton in Late 1990s, he haad been focused on graphics – a participation field with Computer science with no obvious connection to he at the time.
“Computer Graphics Was Such A Dweebie Field,” Said Stephen Witt, The Author of “The Thinking Machine,” Which Details Nvidia’s Rise Obscurity to the Most Valuable Company in the World.
“There was a stigma to working in Computer Graphics-You were Maybe some Kind of Man-Child if this was your focus,” Witt Said.
While Getting His Ph.D. at stanford, buck connected multiple graphics processing units with the aim of stretching say to their limits. He had interned at nvidia before pursuing his ph.d., so he was familiar with the GPU. Initily, he used to graphics like everyone Else.
BUCK HAS SAID THAT HIS AND HIS COHORT WAUDED USE the chips to play video games Such as “Quake” and “” But eventually, he starts nation himself what else his setup could do.
He became fixated on proving that you can use use for anyding and everyding. He reciped funding from nvidia and the defensive advanced Research Projects Agency, Among Others, to Develops to Turn A GPU INTO A General-Purpose SuperComputing. When the Company Saw Brook – Buck’s Attempt at A Programming Language that Applied the Power of Gpus Beyond Graphics, Nvidia Hirhed Him.
He wasn’t alone. John Nickolls, A Hardware Expert and THEN Director of Architecture for GPU Computing, was Also instrumental in building tanks. BUCK May have been forever paired with nickolls if the latter had not died from Cancer in 2011.
“Both nickolls and buck HAD This obsession with Making Computers Go Faster in the Way That A Formula 1 Mechanic Waled have an obsession with the breed of car,” witt to told. (The Author Said Huang Expressed Frustration That Nickolls doesn’t Get the Recognition he deserves his passing.)
BUCK, Nickolls, and a Small Team of Experts BUILT A FRAMEWORK THATEEDED DEVELOPERS TO USE AN EXISTING CODING LANGUAGE, C, TO HARNESS THE GPU’S ABILITY TO RUN IMMENSE CALCULTANEALSY RATHER TANE AT A TIME AND APPLY IT TO ANY FIELD. The result was cuda, a vehicle to bring parallel computing to the masses.
The rise of cuda as an essential element in the world of he was inevitable. Huang insisted on makeing every chip compatible with the software, though hardly anyona ussing it Despite Being Free. In fact, nvidia lost millions of dollars for more than a decade becase of cuda.
The rest is lore. When Launched, Nvidia was already Powering the he computing the revolution is now the focus of $ 7 trillion in infrastructure spending, much of that eventually goes to nvidia.
King of the Nerds
Buck’s Smarts will have limits. He joked to an eager audience at GTC that quantum chromodynamics, A Field of Particle Physics, JUST Won’t Stick in His Brain. But he thrives in nvidia’s notoriously rigorous Environment.
The Santa Clara, California, Company has an intense Culture that eschews one-on-ionitings and airs missteps and disagreements in public. IT MIGHT SOUND TERRIFYING, but for Those with the brains to keep up, the directness and the rigor are ideal.
For this Report, Business Insider Spoke with Four People Who Have Either WORKED LIKE WITH BUCK AT STANFORD, NVIDIA, OR BOTH.
Those Who Know Buck Personally Describe Him As Gregarious and EasyGOING But Capable of Intensity Wen Goals Are on the Line. He Focus on Results Rather than Theory.
In His Public Remarks, at panels and in interviews on Behalf of Nvidia, Buck Vollyys from Rapid, Technical Lines of Thought to Slower, Simple Descriptions in Layman’s Terms.
At a GTC Press Conference, he detailed the latest development in convolutional neurals and then described proteins as “complicated 3D squigglies in your body.” He describes the tiny, sensitive interconnects between parts of an nvidia chipset like the geek squad explaining the back of a tv from memory – iT’e all in his head.
Harris Said Storytelling Ability is Particularly Important in the Upper Ranks at Nvidia. SINCE The Company Essentially Had a Promising Technology Waiting for a Market for Years, Huang Still Being Early As A Business Strategy. He has brands it “Going after zero Billion-Dollar Markets.” The potential of he, “he factories,” and the infrastructure speaking that goes with say is a story nvidia can’t stop telling.
Buck’s Shilling Skills have improked over the years. But in 15-YEAR-OLD Footage, he’s Most animated when explaining the inner workings of Nvidia’s Technology.
“A LOT OF DEVELOPERS ARE AMAZING, but they Say, ‘Leave with Alone. I’m Going to Write My Code in the Mountains Somehre,” Paul Bloch, President of Nvidia Partner DDN, Told Bi. Nvidia’s Leaders aren’t like that, he said. Much of Nvidia’s Upper Edehelon May Have the Skills to Match the Reclusive Set, but they don’t choose between showmanship and code.
Ian Buck’s Next ACT
Ian Back’s Work at Nvidia Begin with a Simple Mandate: Make the GPU Work for Every Industry. That mission is very nearly accomposhed. There are Areings of Cuda Libraries Targeting Industries from Weather ForeCasting to Medical Imaging.
“The libraries are really there is to connect the dots that of every business doesn’t have to Learn Cuda,” Harris Said.
Cuda draws it Strengh From Millions of Developers, amassed Over Decades, WHO Constantly Innovate and Improve on the platform. SO FAR, No One Has Caught Nvidia’s Heels, but the Competition is Coming Faster than Ever.
End BUCK SPOK at GTC, Developers Across the World Were Trying to Break Through Cuda’s Dominance. The First Night of the Conference, A Cast of Competitors Convenated by Tensorwave, an ai Cloud Company Exclusively USSING from Nvidia’s Only Us Rival, AMD, Held an EventLed “Beyond Cuda.”
Tensorwave Cofounder Jeff Tatarchuck Said it Included More than “24 Presensters Talking About What They Doing to OverCome the Cuda Moat.”
AMD, WHICH ALSO Presented at the Event, is Making an Explicit EFFORT to Catch Up on the Software of Ai Computing, But Industry Analysts Say they not there yet.
Harris Told BUCK’s Team Spends a Lot of Time Speaking With Researchers to Stay on Top. That’s always been true, but the natural of the work has Changed. A Decade Ago, Buck Was Convincing Researchers to APPLY ACCELERED Computing to Their Problems; Now the tables have tourned.
“One of the Most Challenging Parts of My Job Often is to try to predict the futures, but he is always surprising us,” buck said at a bank of America conference this month. Understanding what the smartest minds in he Need from nvidia is paramount.
Mory Saw Deepseek, the Company that spooky marks with it ostensibly cheap reasoning he model, as a thvidia synce it achieved Competitive results with Compute, swimming that the team deep intoazeezeezee those gains.
Buck recently described the chinese team as “one of the best cuda developments out there.”
He is entering a new phase as more companies Commercialye Their tools. With Nvidia’s Enormmous Head Start, in Part Built by Buck, The Pace is Intense.
For Example, One of the Products Nvidia Debt at GTC, Dynamo, is an inference computing platform designated to adapt to the rise of reassoning models. NVIDIA LAUNCHED DYNAMO A COUPLE OF MONTHS AFTER THE DEEPSEEK EARTHQUAKE, but some users haad already built their versions. That’s how fast he is evolving.
“Infection is Really Hard. HIGH WICKEDLY HARD,” SAID BUCK AT GTC.
Talent is also a big part of how nvidia is going to try to maintain its domination, and another place where, witt says, buck ha value beyond his technical skills. He’s Not Exactly a Household Name, Event at Stanford.
But for a Certain type of development, The Ones Who Can Play in Buck’s Extremely Complex Sandbox, he is a draw.
“Everyone’s trying to hire these guys, especally after deepseek,” Said Witt. “This was not a sexy domain in Computer Science for a long time. Now it is White Hot.”
“Now these guys are going for Big Money. SO, I Think Ian Buck Has to Be Out There Advertising What His Group is Doing,” Witt Continued.
Nvidia declined to make ian buck available for an interview with Business Insider and declined to comment on this report.
Who’s Nvidia’s Next CEO?
BUCK is more than a decade youunger than huang, who is 62, and doesn’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon. YET, Questions About Succession are inevitable.
Lip-Bu tan, a semiconductor industry legend who recently Became Intel’s CEO, Told Buk is one of a handful of true collaborator for huang, who has more than 60 directs.
“Jensen has three right-hand men,” tan to told bi before and took at intel. Buck is one. Vice President of GPU Engineering Jonah Alben is another. And CFO Colette Cress, Though Clearly Not a Man, Is the Third, Tan Said.
Jay Puri, Nvidia’s Executive Vice President for Worldwide Field Operations, and Sanja Fidler, Vice President of AI Research, Are Also Names that Come Up in Such Conversations.
“I don’t think Ian spends a lot of time doing business strategy.
