Last week NVIDIA chose to radically alter their plans for GTC 2020 in the wake of coronavirus COVID-19's spread to the US, effectively cancelling the in-person event in favour of online seminars, pre-recorded videos, and an exclusive webcast keynote from CEO Jensen Huang. Unfortunately the prognosis remains poor and so the latter of these sparse fixtures also being taken off the schedule, replaced by press releases covering any technological/business announcements and an investor call with the CEO.
NVIDIA today announced that, in light of the spread of the coronavirus, it is deferring plans to deliver a webcast keynote as part of the digital version of its GPU Technology Conference later this month.
The company will, instead, issue on Tuesday, March 24, news announcements that had been scheduled to be shared in the keynote. This will be followed by an investor call with NVIDIA founder and Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, which will be accessible to other listeners.
The call will begin at 8am Pacific time and will be accessible at investor.nvidia.com.
NVIDIA had initially planned to host its 11th annual GTC on March 22-26 at the San Jose Convention Center, with an anticipated audience of 10,000. Amid the worsening coronavirus situation, the company said earlier this month that it was shifting much of the conference to its digital platform.
The company believes that continuing public health uncertainties would challenge its ability to produce and deliver a digital keynote.
Other components of GTC Digital will still take place, including live webinars, recorded talks and panels, research posters, trainings, and Connect with Experts sessions available starting Wednesday, March 25. More details will be provided in the coming days.
The company will, instead, issue on Tuesday, March 24, news announcements that had been scheduled to be shared in the keynote. This will be followed by an investor call with NVIDIA founder and Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, which will be accessible to other listeners.
The call will begin at 8am Pacific time and will be accessible at investor.nvidia.com.
NVIDIA had initially planned to host its 11th annual GTC on March 22-26 at the San Jose Convention Center, with an anticipated audience of 10,000. Amid the worsening coronavirus situation, the company said earlier this month that it was shifting much of the conference to its digital platform.
The company believes that continuing public health uncertainties would challenge its ability to produce and deliver a digital keynote.
Other components of GTC Digital will still take place, including live webinars, recorded talks and panels, research posters, trainings, and Connect with Experts sessions available starting Wednesday, March 25. More details will be provided in the coming days.
Despite being couched as a postponement of the keynote, the announcement effectively amounts to a cancellation. There's little hope that COVID-19 will be 'sorted' in the short term, and come June we'd be anticipating a Computex 2020 keynote from Jensen anyway. With even that highlight of the year in doubt we may be without Jensen and his stylish leather jackets for some time to come.
Many will say that NVIDIA's cautious approach is an overreaction, that the vast majority of COVID-19 cases are 'mild' in nature and not worth such a strong response. Given laissez-faire inaction by authorities in the US and uncertainty over actual symptom severity, NVIDIA have sensibly chosen to be better safe than sorry.
SOURCE: NVIDIA Newsdesk.
