This is the time of year when professional football teams are hoping to get the next Tom Brady, Joe Montana or Deion Sanders. Every now and then there are a couple of “can’t miss” prospects such as Peyton Manning or Saquon Barkley, but there are often far more draft busts than hits. It raises the question of why this is given the amount of money and resources teams pour into scouting, the NFL Combine, workout days and more.
Two words are practically ubiquitous in technology discussions these days: artificial intelligence and cloud. At last week’s Nvidia GTC conference in San Jose, many emerging technology companies discussed and demonstrated how they leverage AI and the cloud to deliver innovative products and solutions to their customers.
Last week all eyes were on Nvidia Corp.’s GTC, also known as the artificial intelligence show. But there was another event going on across the country as Enterprise Connect, the communications industry’s largest event was going on in Orlando, Florida. AI was the theme at EC as the technology is changing the way we interact with each other and with customers and that’s where Zoom Communications Inc. unloaded a salvo of 45 agentic AI skills and agent enhancements for its Zoom AI Companion.
In its 18th annual GTC conference last week, Nvidia Corp. not surprisingly aimed to get audience members’ hearts pumping for what’s next — which obviously is the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence. Nvidia co-founder and Chief Executive Jensen Huang once again played his traditional keynote speaker role. As usual, he was dressed in all black, including a leather jacket. On Tuesday, Huang held court without a script for more than two hours, introducing Nvidia’s upcoming products.
Artificial intelligence continues to be a focal point for companies in all areas of technology and communications as demand from enterprise customers continues to soar, but one of the underappreciated aspects of AI is that a network plays a critical role in the success of AI initiatives. Despite the same type of “AI bump” the capital markets have given the chip companies; the network vendors have been aggressive with evolving their products to meet the demands of AI.