Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Tuesday unveiled a rapid-fire series of strategic moves to outline the GPU vendor’s artificial intelligence vision.

Huang made the announcements in Washington D.C. during Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC), an event Huang referred to as “the Super Bowl of AI.”

Huang’s keynote was packed with news, but the three biggest pieces were:

• Nvidia NVQLink high-speed interconnect for quantum computing.
• $1 billion investment in Nokia to accelerate AI-RAN (Artificial Intelligence-Radio Access Network) innovation and help transition from 5G to 6G.
• A deal with the U.S. to build seven Department of Energy (DoE) AI supercomputers.

Nvidia NVQLink is an open-system architecture for combining its GPU computing with quantum processors used in supercomputers.

“In the near future, every NVIDIA GPU scientific supercomputer will be hybrid, tightly coupled with quantum processors to expand what is possible with computing,” Huang said. “NVQLink is the Rosetta Stone connecting quantum and classical supercomputers — uniting them into a single, coherent system that marks the onset of the quantum-GPU computing era.”

Nvidia revealed 17 quantum computing companies, five controller builders and nine U.S. national labs as quantum partners.

“Just about every single DOE lab is working with our ecosystem of quantum computer companies and these quantum controllers so that we can integrate quantum computing into the future of science,” Huang said.

The Nokia investment is part of a strategic partnership that will help support AI-powered consumer experiences and enterprise services at the edge. Nokia will integrate Nvidia ARC, the GPU vendor’s AI-native wireless stack for 6G.

“We’re going to partner with Nokia and they’re going to make NVIDIA ARC their future base stations,” Huang said.

The partnership will combine Nvidia’s commercial grade AI-RAN products with Nokia’s RAN portfolio. That will address part of the RAN market that analyst firm Omdia expects to exceed $200 billion by 2030.

“I anticipate this partnership to provide the groundwork for supporting next-generation AI-powered consumer experiences and enterprise services at the network edge,” HyperFrame Research analyst Ron Westfall wrote in a note on the partnership. “By combining their strengths, Nokia and NVIDIA can deliver distributed edge AI inferencing at scale, potentially creating a new, high-growth frontier for telecom providers and strategically enhancing the infrastructure.

“Growth in AI traffic is rapidly expanding, exemplified by the fact that nearly 50% of ChatGPT's 800 million weekly active users connect through mobile, with its monthly app downloads surpassing 40 million. To meet this soaring demand and enhance network experiences for future AI applications, mobile operators are turning to Nokia and NVIDIA-powered AI-RAN systems.”

Huang predicted AI-RAN will "revolutionize communications" during his keynote.

“Telecommunications is a critical national infrastructure — the digital nervous system of our economy and security,” Huang said. “Built on NVIDIA CUDA and AI, AI-RAN will revolutionize telecommunications — a generational platform shift that empowers the United States to regain global leadership in this vital infrastructure technology. Together with Nokia and America’s telecom ecosystem, we’re igniting this revolution, equipping operators to build intelligent, adaptive networks that will define the next generation of global connectivity.”

See the rest of Nvidia’s GTC news here.