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In the demanding technical field of semiconductor manufacturing, hardcover book-sized processors stand out. Nvidia’s H-100. On Friday, the Santa Clara, Calif., company was valued at more than $2 trillion. The next step will likely be a chip named after U.S. Navy Rear Adm. “Amazing Grace” Hopper, who was instrumental in designing and implementing the programming language.
Nvidia supplies about 80% of the global market for chips used in AI applications. The company’s H-100 chips (the “H is for hopper”) are now so valuable that they have to be transported in armored vehicles, and demand is so great that some customers have to wait 6 months to receive it.
Hopper’s importance to Nvidia, and to AI computing more generally, was reinforced last summer when Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Fan announced the next generation accelerated computing and generation AI chip, the GH200 Grace Hopper. It was emphasized when they named it a Super Chip.
Admiral Grace Hopper in 1985. Photo: Associated Press
Hopper was born in New York City in 1906, graduated from Vassar College in 1928 with degrees in mathematics and physics, and joined the Navy after the United States entered World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
According to a biography from Yale University, Initially rejected by the Navy because of her age and small stature, she was commissioned and assigned to Harvard University’s Ship Bureau Computation Project, where she worked on the Mark I, America’s first electromechanical computer, calculating the rocket’s trajectory and reaction force, aircraft gun range table, and minesweeper calibration.
After the war, Hopper joined the Eckhart-Mauchly Computer Corporation (later Sperry Rand), where she pioneered the idea of automatic programming. In 1952, she developed the first compiler, a program that translated written instructions into computer code.
“What I was looking for when I started learning English [programming] was to bring in another whole group who could easily use computers. I kept asking for a more user-friendly language. Most of what we have learned from academics and computer science people has never been adapted to humans,” Hopper explained in a 1980 interview.
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Hopper retired as a rear admiral at age 79, making her the oldest active duty officer in the U.S. military. The year before her death in 1992, she was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President George H.W. Bush. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, in 2016.
In a 1983 interview on “60 Minutes”, Hopper was asked if the computer revolution was over. Hopper replied: “No, we’re just getting started. I got a Model T.”
Source: www.theguardian.com
