"AI sovereignty essential for India"

Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, Asia South, NVIDIA, on the company's growth, India's role in AI, and more

- BY DANNY CYRIL DCRUZE

VISHAL DHUPAR HAS held the position of Managing Director of NVIDIA's South Asia operations since 2010. In an interview with Business Today, Dhupar speaks of NVIDIA's AI play, India's participation in the race, and more. Edited excerpts:

How has your experience shaped your vision of AI's role in India?

My journey with NVIDIA started 15 years ago. What compelled me was its unique mission. Back then, many people saw the company as just a semiconductor chip or graphics card company, primarily focused on gaming and workstations.

However, NVIDIA's core philosophy was different: If everyone is doing something well, there must be something not being done well. We decided to pursue the “hard problems”, becoming a market creator rather than just chasing market share. This led to innovations in gaming, professional visualisation, and scientific computing. I was attracted to the commitment to tackling difficult, long-term challenges with patience and a clear vision.

Did you foresee this kind of surge in AI?

I understood NVIDIA would impact large enterprises, especially data centres. However, I couldn’t have conceived of a completely different way of computing—an era of manufacturing intelligence where everything in computing would be rephrased. Our leader, Jensen Huang, absolutely could conceive it.