Is a new AI outlet emerging? Huang Renxun: Cybersecurity will be the next major application scenario

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Nvidia (NVDA.US) co-founder and CEO Huang Renxun said that cybersecurity is expected to become the next major application market for artificial intelligence. As AI models are increasingly involved in software programming, the speed at which code is discovered, exploited, and needs to be fixed is accelerating. This change is reshaping the cybersecurity industry and may spawn a new round of AI-related demand.

“Cybersecurity is likely to become the next major application scenario for AI,” Hwang In-hoon said at the Goldman Sachs Technology Conference in San Francisco on Thursday. He pointed out that AI models are driving the automation of computer programming, and this trend is bringing huge changes to the cybersecurity industry. As AI is able to generate and process code faster than ever before, software vulnerabilities may be exposed and exploited more quickly, while enterprises also need to find and fix security issues at a higher speed.

When talking about the new demand created by AI in the cybersecurity industry, Wong In-hoon said, “What could create demand better than creating a problem?” He said that no company would refuse the market to generate strong demand for its products, but the relevant technology can either be applied responsibly or in a “less ideal way.”

Hwang In-hoon's latest statement further shows that Nvidia is expanding the future application prospects of AI from data centers and software development to more industries. As an important component of enterprise IT spending, cybersecurity is expected to become a new growth area with the popularity of AI programming and AI agents.

Meanwhile, Wall Street is still closely watching whether the global AI infrastructure investment boom will continue. Nvidia announced a strong long-term business outlook last month, further strengthening investors' expectations that huge capital expenditure on AI data centers will continue and that Nvidia will continue to be the main beneficiary.

However, like the computing industry as a whole, Nvidia continues to face one of the core problems of investors, namely whether tech giants can invest huge amounts of capital in AI data centers and ultimately generate sufficient economic returns.

In addition to this, Nvidia's continued expansion of investment and mergers and acquisitions in recent years has also raised market concerns about the AI industry's capital cycle. Some investors worry that chip suppliers invest in AI companies, and these companies then use large amounts of money to purchase Nvidia chips and systems, which may amplify the demand performance of the AI market to a certain extent.

Last week, Nvidia announced that it would acquire AI startup Hugging Face for around $13 billion. The deal will further expand Nvidia's coverage in the AI industry chain, further extending its business reach from core chips and computing infrastructure to AI platforms and other fields.

Wong In-hoon denied concerns that some of Nvidia's investments might form a “circular transaction,” and emphasized that Nvidia can directly observe the actual needs that customers are facing.

Wong In-hoon said, “This is not a cycle, because if we invest a little money, more money will flow back.” He said that the market is gradually realizing that the field Nvidia invests in often has good investment value because the company can grasp a large amount of first-line demand information based on its position in the AI industry.

He further stated that he needed to see an “almost certain opportunity” before using Nvidia's own funds to invest. For potential investment targets, to meet this standard, Nvidia first needs to confirm that the relevant company's products or services already have clear customer needs.

“I'm not going to take any risks.” Wong In-hoon said that a potential investment project can only meet Nvidia's investment standards if it is seen that customers are already “waiting in line”.