Nvidia, Foxconn partner to start building AI factories

Chipmaker Nvidia and the world’s largest contract manufacturer Foxconn are partnering to start building AI factories globally, the two companies announced on Tuesday.

AI factories are data centers with infrastructure specially built for processing, refining, and transforming vast amounts of data into valuable AI models and tokens, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang and Foxconn Chairman and CEO Young Liu, said during a fireside chat at Hon Hai Tech Day, in Taipei.

“A new type of manufacturing has emerged — the production of intelligence. And the data centers that produce it are AI factories,” Huang said in a statement, adding that the data center infrastructure would include Nvidia’s accelerated computing platform — the latest GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip and Nvidia’s AI enterprise software.

Foxconn is also expected to build a large number of systems based on Nvidia’s hardware, software, and networking stack for its global customers, who are looking to create and operate their own AI factories.

“With these systems, Foxconn customers can leverage Nvidia accelerated computing to deliver generative AI services as well as use simulation to speed up the training of autonomous machines, including industrial robots and self-driving cars,” the companies said in a statement.

Foxconn itself is eyeing the possibility of equipping its manufacturing plants with Nvidia stack.

“An AI factory with the Nvidia stack can give Foxconn the ability to accomplish AI training and inference, enhance factory workflows and run simulations in the virtual world before deployment in the physical world,” the companies said, adding that simulating the entire robotics and automation pipeline from end to end provides Foxconn with a path to operational efficiency gains, saving time and costs.

Currently, Nvidia dominates the AI chip market, buoyed by the demand for generative AI.