In a fascinating revelation, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang has detailed how tech billionaire Elon Musk became the very first customer for the company's groundbreaking AI supercomputer, the DGX-1, back in 2016. This pivotal sale, as it turned out, was destined for a small non-profit that would later become known worldwide as OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
The Lone Believer in Nvidia's AI Vision
During a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Huang shared the behind-the-scenes story. He recalled that when Nvidia first announced the DGX-1, an AI supercomputer system costing $300,000 per unit, the company had no purchase orders at all. The world seemed indifferent to the advanced hardware, despite Nvidia investing billions in its development.
"When I announced this thing, nobody in the world wanted it. I had no purchase orders—not one," Huang told Rogan. The turning point came during a fireside chat event with Elon Musk about the future of self-driving cars. Musk expressed immediate interest, telling Huang he had a company that could really use the powerful machine.
A Non-Profit Customer and a Personal Delivery
The initial excitement Huang felt about securing his first customer was momentarily dampened when Musk clarified that the company was a non-profit. Huang humorously noted that the chances of a non-profit affording the expensive system were "approximately zero." However, Musk explained it was an AI research company, setting the stage for a historic delivery.
Huang built one unit for Nvidia's internal use and personally prepared the second. In 2016, he boxed it up, drove to San Francisco, and delivered it to Musk. "I walked up to the second floor, where they were all kind of crammed into a small room... and that place turned out to be OpenAI," Huang revealed, marking his first introduction to the now-famous AI lab.
The Lasting Impact on AI Development
This delivery proved to be a seminal moment for both companies. The DGX-1, powered by eight Pascal GPUs, provided the computational firepower that enabled OpenAI's foundational research, eventually leading to breakthroughs like ChatGPT. The partnership underscored the critical role of specialized hardware in the AI revolution.
The story resurfaced earlier this year when Elon Musk shared a throwback AI-generated video on X (formerly Twitter) of the 2016 delivery. The video, created using a new feature in his Grok AI chatbot, showed Huang unpacking the GPU. Musk captioned it, "Jensen delivering the first AI-optimized GPU to OpenAI in 2016," celebrating the origins of a collaboration that helped shape the modern AI landscape.
Huang has consistently praised Musk's foresight, stating that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was "doing just the right things" to advance artificial intelligence. This early act of support for cutting-edge AI infrastructure from a key industry figure helped validate Nvidia's direction and cemented a crucial hardware-software synergy that continues to drive innovation today.
