"Augmented reality next big thing in graphics"

BANGALORE: What's common to this year's Oscar winner for special effects Spiderman 2, and the simulation equipment used in training US defense personnel? The answer is that they both run on nVidia's graphics processors. Recently, nVidia became the latest Silicon Valley company that announced its "designs" for India. The $2 billion company recently opened its design and development center in Bangalore and also plans to tap the market. The company's president, CEO and co-founder Jen Hsun Huang was in Bangalore to inaugurate the company's Indian center. He spoke to Priya Padmanabhan of CyberMedia News about the graphic processor business and his plan to cultivate the Indian market.



Excerpts from the discussion.





What is your outlook on the graphic processing market today?





Right now the market is poised on the intersection of consumer electronics and computing. This is the growth driver for the industry. Digital technology is becoming a universal language and the digital consumer is driving this revolution. Technology is the only commodity that reduces by a factor of two in cost every year. This is made possible by advances in semi-conductor technology.


This is quite exciting for us because our products are incorporated into various platforms including notebooks, PCs, mobile phones, PDAs and game consoles. Wireless media processors and cell phones are on the way to becoming a commodity and the only differentiator in these gadgets is the technology.








With the PC market moving towards commodization, how will companies flourish in the market?





Companies have to try and find a balance. On one hand, it is important to make the PC cheaper and companies also have to figure out a way to add value. Technology and features would be the differentiator. If technology has to reach more people, it has to be affordable. Ideally, the industry should come up with a $200 PC.





However, the focus should not be just to come up with cheaper PCs but understand the benefits that it can offer. The I-café model, which was used in China, resulted in the market there growing like crazy. It is important to grow the ecosystem. The market's tipping point is when the technology gets cheaper and people see value in investing in it and become part of the market.








What according to you would be the next big thing in graphics technology?





The next biggest thing that can be expected is computer vision or what is termed "augmented reality" where the computer will be able to see you. For example, the PC would turn itself on when it sees you or one could drive through fog through 3D graphic displays in cars. The wonderful thing is that what was thought of as sci-fi stuff is actually happening today. No one could have imagined videophones or camera phones would be a reality. I'm sure we will see augmented reality technology in a decade's time. I believe that it takes around 10 years for sci-fi dreams to turn into reality.

What are nVidia's plans for the Indian market?

We would like to work with Indian companies to promote the spread of I-cafes. I will be meeting with companies like HCL, Zenith and others to see how we can take this forward. Secondly, we would like to cultivate the video game companies here. We want to work with Indian designers and games and animation companies. India has such a good tradition of story telling. We would like to combine this Indian passion for stories with the available skill sets.


We would also like to partner with companies like Wipro, Sify and Infosys, which can expand businesses here and grow the market. There is an extraordinary pent-up potential. We are here to learn and engage the market. Our immediate focus would be the film industry in India and the animation industry. We also want to partner with companies, which can develop applications on our chips. This development would be an extension of our engineering team.


We also partner with Intel and AMD globally, since we have a common mission to make the PC accessible to more consumers.





What kind of work will be done out of Bangalore?





Around 140 engineers or 10 percent of nVidia's global employees are from India. We are here to capitalize on the talent in India. I have realized that it is not enough for us to sit in Santa Clara and design what we think the rest of the world needs. So we will focus on building products here and selling it to the local market.I won't be surprised if we spend $100 million on R&D in India. We plan to have around 100 engineers in hardware and software at the Bangalore design center.