“`html
Getty Images
- Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, lauded Elon Musk for constructing a supercomputer cluster in just 19 days.
- Huang characterized this achievement as a “superhuman” feat, emphasizing Musk’s exceptional engineering skills.
- The praise was shared during an episode of the “BG2 Pod.”
Jensen Huang, the head of Nvidia, has expressed admiration for Elon Musk following the rapid development of a supercomputer by his startup xAI. This impressive feat was accomplished in merely 19 days—a task that typically would require years to complete.
In a recent episode of the “BG2 Pod,” which aired on Sunday, Huang referred to this endeavor as a “superhuman” accomplishment. He noted that it took place in Memphis and highlighted how extraordinary it is to achieve such results within such a limited timeframe.
“To my knowledge, there’s only one individual capable of achieving this; Elon possesses an unparalleled grasp of engineering principles and large-scale systems management—it’s truly remarkable,” stated Huang.
xAI’s supercomputer is named Colossus and consists of an impressive array featuring 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs. In September, Musk mentioned on X that bringing the training cluster online took 122 days from inception to completion—indicating he was referencing the overall project duration.
Huang also praised xAI’s teams responsible for engineering, software development, networking infrastructure and described their work as “extraordinary.”
Musk previously revealed in June during an interview with Jordan Peterson on X that transitioning Colossus from hardware setup to operational training took just 19 days. He remarked that this timeline represents “the fastest anyone has ever achieved such progress.”
Huang further elaborated on Colossus: “To put things into perspective: having 100,000 GPUs makes it easily the fastest supercomputer globally when considered as one cohesive unit.” He added that typically constructing such a supercomputer involves three years dedicated to planning followed by another year for equipment installation and configuration.
xAI officially launched its operations in 2023 and introduced its latest AI chatbot version called Grok-2 in August. Earlier this year, xAI announced securing $6 billion through new funding initiatives.
Larry Ellison, co-founder and chairman of Oracle Corporation shared insights from his dinner with Musk and Huang at Nobu in Palo Alto last month. During their meeting with long-time friends Ellison humorously recounted how they were “pleading” with Huang for more GPUs while saying things like: “Please take our money… we need you to accept more funds,” before adding jokingly about how well it went over all.
Nvidia along with representatives from Elon Musk’s team did not respond promptly outside regular business hours when approached by Business Insider for comments regarding these developments.
Source
“`
