Why did NVIDIA CEO win the main prize of VinFuture 2024?

The person who directly nominated NVIDIA CEO for the VinFuture Prize 2024 is Ms. Monica Lam, professor of computer science at Stanford University, Academician of the US National Academy of Engineering. She admitted that her nomination was "a little different from the norm".

After the VinFuture 2024 award ceremony, there were mixed comments about Mr. Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA Corporation (USA), being awarded the main prize, worth 3 million USD, along with 4 other scientists.

However, according to the VinFuture Prize Council, honoring a non-academic figure like NVIDIA CEO continues to be a testament to the outstanding vision and multi-dimensional, fair and different evaluation lens of the VinFuture Prize 2024.

Deep learning giants, including NVIDIA Chairman and CEO, receive million-dollar VinFuture 2024 prize

PHOTO: THANH LAM

According to Dr. Xuedong David Huang, Chief Technology Officer of Zoom Corporation (USA), Academician of the US National Academy of Engineering, member of the VinFuture Prize Council, deep learning is a step forward for humanity, achieved thanks to three factors: deep learning algorithms, huge amounts of data, and accelerated computing platforms (GPU).

Professors Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, and Yoshua Bengio have made cutting-edge research in deep learning algorithms. Professor Fei-Fei Li contributed to the foundation of ImageNet and its associated dataset.

Jensen Huang is the pioneer who brought the power of GPUs to the entire community. "Nvidia CEO's contribution is extremely important for the explosion of the deep learning revolution," said Dr. Xuedong David Huang.

Professor Soumitra Dutta, University of Oxford (UK), another member of the council, commented that AI has been an explosive field in the past decade, and the main VinFuture prize this year was given to the individuals who made that "explosion". VinFuture has done an important thing by recognizing that deep learning is not just algorithms. Deep learning is the crystallization of algorithms, data and hardware.

“Without the pioneering resources from NVIDIA, computational applications would not be able to run, and would not be able to produce extraordinary calculations or predictions and the rapid development of AI,” analyzed Professor Soumitra Dutta.

Professor Kostya S. Novoselov, University of Manchester (UK), winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics, a member of the VinFuture Prize Council for the past 4 years, said that with the main VinFuture Prize 2024, the council reached a very high level of consensus.

He also voted for entrepreneur Jensen Huang. "Without the combined power of computing, of modern GPUs and TPUs, specific databases and algorithms, such an achievement would not have been possible," explained Professor Novoselov.

Fair recognition

The person who directly nominated NVIDIA CEO for the VinFuture Prize 2024 is Ms. Monica Lam, professor of computer science at Stanford University, Academician of the US National Academy of Engineering. She said her nomination is "a little different from the norm".

But the VinFuture is different from other purely academic prizes. The Nobel Prize has honored AI research, but a prize that considers “far-reaching impact” like the VinFuture is a suitable place to honor hardware experts, recognizing outstanding contributions from the technology world.

"VinFuture is famous for its fair recognition of all, not just outstanding individuals, that's why I nominated NVIDIA CEO," said Professor Lam.

Mr. Jensen Huang: "I am honored to receive the VinFuture Grand Prize"

PHOTO: THANH LAM

Professor Geoffrey Hinton, University of Toronto, Canada, one of the five main winners of the VinFuture 2024 prize, said that recognizing Mr. Jensen Huang's work in pioneering the creation of GPU boards useful for AI is a great aspect of the VinFuture 2024 prize.

“We found that when we used GPUs to train neural networks, they were 30 times faster. That was a quantum leap. It was like the computation speed was 10 years ahead of its time. Suddenly we were 10 years ahead of the future in terms of computation speed. That was a complete game changer for AI, it was amazing!”, said Professor Hinton.

Professor Hinton added: "The combination of Jensen Huang's GPU board and Professor Fei Fei Li's dataset played an important role in the modern development of AI. It's great that their work is recognized alongside those working on neural network algorithms."

According to Professor Richard Henry Friend, Chairman of the VinFuture Prize Council, the different lens that helps VinFuture seek out projects that can benefit millions of people around the world makes VinFuture unlike any other prize.

"In fact, after 4 seasons, VinFuture has demonstrated its outstanding vision and different approach in evaluating research comprehensively, in a multidimensional relationship instead of just honoring individual studies," said Professor Friend.

Billionaire Jensen Huang, the richest Asian in America, has only a master's degree, but has been awarded honorary doctorates by a series of prestigious universities. Earlier this year, he was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering "for high-performance graphics processing units that have fueled the artificial intelligence revolution."

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