I had the opportunity to return to NVIDIA’s annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC) event that was held in San Jose, California, a few weeks ago, and similar to last year, I was hard pressed to find any AEC-specific technologies. However, I did get the opportunity to learn more about some of the key advances NVIDIA has made in the broader field of graphics-enabled visualization that is also relevant to AEC in addition to other industries such as gaming, media and entertainment, manufacturing, and industrial and product design. I also got a chance to understand why the GTC is billed as a “premier AI and deep learning event” even though NVIDIA is best known as a company that makes graphics processing units (GPUs) for the gaming and professional markets.
This article explores both these aspects of NVIDIA’s technology—AI (artificial intelligence) and graphics—in more detail.