How big is the global gaming market? What are Nvidia’s plans for the gaming market in India?
The total turnover of gaming industry for 2013 was around $70 billion. In a couple of years, the revenue will reach $100 billion. Gaming is now a massive spectator sport. Nvidia has been the market leader in gaming for quite some time. In India, we see immense potential for this e-sport. We have about 75 million serious gamers here and their number is growing by the day. According to our survey, most gamers in India are not from big cities, they are from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. We work closely with our partners, to ensure the latest and the best gaming technology is brought to India, as soon as it is launched. We also conduct awareness initiatives for popularising gaming. Recently we launched the Battle Box program in which we work with a set of partners to design and build gaming PCs featuring a variety of configurations and catering to varied budget categories.
What is your view of Android as a gaming platform?
The Google Play Android market generated roughly $250 million in revenues in the first quarter, this represents a 2.5 times growth from a year earlier. 90% of those revenues came from games. So far Android gaming has largely been confined to casual games, we expect this to change. Mobile gaming will follow the same trend as PC gaming. We are committed to turning Android into a vibrant platform. The launch of Nvidia’s Shield tablet is part of this vision of the company to turbocharge Android gaming. The tablet’s gaming capabilities are powered by its Tegra K1 mobile processor, which taps into the same Kepler architecture that drives the most extreme gaming PCs.
Nvidia is now planning to provide chips for cars. Can you share details about the company’s plans in this area?
Nvidia Tegra mobile processors power infotainment and navigation systems in a wide variety of cars, including Audi, BMW, MINI, Tesla Motors and VW. With the Tegra K1 Visual Computing Module (VCM), Nvidia is working with automakers to build applications that unlock everything from digital dashboards to next-generation safety systems, and even semi-autonomous driving.
What contribution is Nvidia making in the Open Automotive Alliance?
The Open Automotive Alliance aims to plug cars into the same mobile ecosystem that powers Android smartphone, tablet and television. Nvidia is the only technology company, so far, that is joining Audi, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai and Google as founding members of the OAA. Our aim is to help create cars that give drivers and passengers access to new and existing services in ways that don’t distract drivers. We are trying to take advantage of voice recognition technology and creating a framework for the incorporation of commonly used services into controls that drivers are already familiar with.
What are the company’s plans with respect to supercomputing?
Today we see GPUs everywhere from gaming to smart cars to smart cities to scientific research. Scientific simulations require quadrillions of parallel computations per second and GPUs are the apt tool for offering superior technical computing capability for the same. Also, it’s worthy to note that in the last few years, the most energy-efficient systems are being built with our GPU accelerators. In fact, the top 15 systems on the latest Green500 list use GPU accelerators at their heart.
In India too, this ability of GPUs has caught the attention of scientists and engineers, and premier scientific and research centers such as Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Department of Atomic Energy, ICAR, NCRA and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research are already using them. Over the last few years, India’s share in the top supercomputers of the world has increased, as has Nvidia’s share in the computing architecture deployed in such supercomputers.