Tech Titans Dine and Discuss: Musk and Ellison's GPU Request to Nvidia's CEO
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Elon Musk and Larry Ellison begged Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang for AI GPUs at dinner
During the company's latest earnings call, Oracle founder Larry Ellison admitted (via Barron's) that he had to beg Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to supply his company with its latest GPUs. "In Nobu Palo Alto, I went to dinner with Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, and I would describe the dinner as me and Elon begging Jensen for GPUs. Please take our money; no, take more of it. You're not taking enough of it; we need you to take more of our money, please," Ellison said during the call. "It went okay; it worked." It looks like this dinner was very productive indeed and that it was money well spent for Ellison and Oracle. The company recently announced that it will create a Zettascale AI supercluster composed of 131,072 Nvidia GB200 NVL72 Blackwell GPUs that delivers 2.4 ZettaFLOPS of AI performance -- more powerful than Musk and xAI's Memphis Supercluster, which currently has 100,000 Nvidia H100 AI GPUs. Oracle's AI plans demand an incredible amount of power, which is also why the company has already secured permits to build three modular nuclear reactors to deliver the electrical needs of its facilities. However, since deploying nuclear reactors to data centers will likely take several years, the company could, in the meantime, follow Musk's lead and use massive mobile generators to boost local power supply if needed. Despite being smaller than other big tech companies that offer data center services, like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has a distinct advantage over these giants. According to Barron's report, OCI provides better flexibility and can meet specific requirements that some customers demand. It can even provide offline servers that run on its own networking infrastructure to maximize security for the most demanding clients. But despite its size, Oracle is pushing its investments in AI. Ellison says that frontier AI models coming in the next three years will cost $100 billion to train, echoing Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's thoughts on the matter. And it seems that OCI wants to become one of the leaders in AI processing. "Someone's going to be better at this than anybody else, and multiple people are trying, and there is a race," said Ellison during the call. He then added later, "Getting there first is a big deal."
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Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang had dinner: both 'begging Jensen for GPUs'
Oracle CTO Larry Ellison recently had dinner with SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, as well as NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, with Ellison saying both he and Elon were "begging" Jensen for GPUs. Check it out: Ellison said: "I went to dinner with Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, and I would describe the dinner as Oracle and me and Elon begging Jensen for GPUs. Please take our money... no no, take more of it. You're not taking eough. We need you to take more of our money, please". It was recently revealed that Oracle would be spending over $100 billion on 2000+ data centers in the future, with 130,000+ of NVIDIA's new Blackwell AI GPUs powering its new AI supercluster, with the company talking about requiring 3 nuclear power plants just to power the supercluster. Impressive stuff from Oracle, and now we know (from the horse's mouth, too) that they're (not just Oracle, but Elon, too) "begging" Jensen for GPUs. Everyone needs to go to Uncle Jensen for their AI GPU hardware, with NVIDIA sitting (very) pretty in the AI business. NVIDIA can't have enough of its AI GPUs -- Hopper H100 and H200, Blackwell B100 and B200 -- out of TSMC, which is strapped to the limits making as many chips as it can. Oracle wants them, Elon wants them, Meta wants them, OpenAI wants them, Microsoft wants them, everyone wants NVIDIA's leading AI hardware, and now we're hearing that they're begging for them.
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Elon Musk and Larry Ellison reportedly pleaded with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang for AI GPUs during a dinner meeting. The encounter highlights the intense demand for advanced AI hardware in Silicon Valley.
A High-Stakes Dinner Meeting
In a revealing encounter that underscores the fierce competition for cutting-edge AI technology, tech moguls Elon Musk and Larry Ellison reportedly engaged in an unexpected plea for graphics processing units (GPUs) during a dinner with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The meeting, which took place at Ellison's home, sheds light on the critical importance of AI hardware in today's tech landscape
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.The GPU Shortage and Its Impact
The dinner conversation highlights a pressing issue in the tech industry: the scarcity of high-performance GPUs crucial for AI development. Nvidia's GPUs, particularly the H100 and A100 models, are in extremely high demand due to their superior performance in AI and machine learning tasks. This shortage has led to a situation where even industry giants like Musk and Ellison find themselves vying for access to these coveted components
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.Musk's AI Ambitions and GPU Needs
Elon Musk, known for his involvement in various tech ventures, has recently been focusing on AI development. His company, xAI, aims to create AI systems that can compete with industry leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic. The need for powerful GPUs is crucial for Musk's AI aspirations, explaining his eagerness to secure a supply from Nvidia
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.Oracle's Strategic Move in AI
Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, has been positioning his company to be a major player in the AI infrastructure market. Oracle's cloud services have been expanding to include AI-specific offerings, making access to top-tier GPUs a strategic necessity. Ellison's involvement in the dinner meeting demonstrates Oracle's commitment to securing the hardware needed to compete in the rapidly evolving AI landscape
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Nvidia's Market Dominance
The dinner meeting also highlights Nvidia's dominant position in the AI hardware market. Under Jensen Huang's leadership, Nvidia has become the go-to provider for AI-focused GPUs, with their products being essential for many cutting-edge AI applications. This market leadership has put Huang in a powerful position, with even tech industry leaders like Musk and Ellison seeking his favor
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.The Broader Implications for AI Development
This high-profile encounter between tech leaders underscores the broader challenges facing the AI industry. The scarcity of critical hardware components like GPUs could potentially slow down AI innovation and development across various sectors. It also raises questions about the concentration of power in the hands of a few key players in the AI hardware market
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