India is among Nvidia?s most important markets and one of the key focus areas for growth. The Santa Clara, California-based company has been quick to proliferate the high performance computing market here. ?Supercomputers from India have begun making their mark globally in scientific and aeronautical, medical and life-sciences as well as engineering computational researches and analysis,? says Vishal Dhupar, managing director, South Asia, Nvidia. Dhupar previously served for five years as managing director for India and South Asia at Symantec, following a similar position at Autodesk. He has also held a variety of sales leadership positions at Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics and Digital Equipment Corp. In recent years, Nvidia has invested heavily to move beyond its traditional business of designing graphics chips for PCs, by expanding into the market for mobile device chips. ?We are committed to creating technologies that change the way people experience the world,? he tells Sudhir Chowdhary in a recent interaction. Excerpts:

Nvidia has been one of the early corporate companies to have entered the mobile processor space; from being a graphics card company, how has this shift been?

From our roots in visual computing, we have evolved by anticipating major shifts in the marketplace. The most significant of these right now is the trend towards mobile. We knew that developing a strong presence in this space would be fundamental to the company?s future.

At Nvidia, we recognised early it was not enough to create a mobile processor which would deliver exceptional functionality. We needed to design a chip which would combine powerful features with extreme power efficiency and thus our Tegra processor came into being. It wasn?t easy and we learned a lot of lessons during Tegra?s creation, but our strong heritage of excellence in engineering and unparalleled knowledge of graphics technology allowed us to achieve our goal.

In the age where tablets and smartphones have been continually rolling out with upgrades in either operating systems, camera quality, apps or more, Nvidia stepped up and in 2011 introduced Tegra 3 to the world, a quad-core mobile processor which not only provides up to five times faster computing (compared to Tegra 2), but also offers this exceptional processing speed while consuming lesser power!

Today, consumers expect to have the same kind of computing experience on their mobile device as their desktop or notebook PC? high definition video playback, streaming video and audio, multitasking, browsing the Web, 3D gaming, and 3D interfaces. Consumers crave a full desktop experience on their handheld devices without compromising battery life, security or reliability.

Give us an overview of Nvidia?s business in India.

Nvidia is a leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU (graphics processing unit). We produce a range of GPU-based products which serve a vast range of sectors and industries, from automotive design to medical imaging, mobile phones, video games and cutting edge scientific research. We have evolved from being a ?graphics? company to becoming known as a ?computing? company, serving the needs of enterprises and consumers alike.

One of the key focus areas for Nvidia in India is proliferating high performance computing (HPC). Supercomputers from India have begun making their mark globally in scientific and aeronautical, medical and life-sciences as well as engineering computational researches and analysis. India also has now recognised the potential of GPU-based supercomputing. For the first time, this year, a GPU based system was featured on the list of Top Super Computers in India!

Apart from making a mark in the HPC space, we also want to leverage the tremendous opportunity in the mobility space. We are working closely with various partners in the mobile computing industry to ensure that we provide consumers with the best-in class mobile technologies through our Tegra brand.

We are committed to create technologies that change the way people experience the world and therefore, as much as 25% of our turnover is dedicated to R&D. We have three design centres in India, one each in Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad, that contribute to the global product pipeline.

With the mobility market seeing such strong growth, do you foresee a falling demand for PCs in the future?

Today, we can witness a revolution in the mobility space mainly because of improved broadband services and proliferation of devices. As technology and hardware have evolved, with the onset of multi-core processors, more intuitive screens, more sleek devices, umpteen smartphones, tablets and now ?phablets? have hit the market. However, I do not feel that this has reduced the demand for PCs in the future, nor does it look like it will decline. This is because, today mobile devices still largely remain mediums for content consumption; while for content creation most users still turn to their PCs.

Do you think India has shaped up into being a gaming country?

According to Ficci-KPMG Indian media and entertainment industry report 2011, the Indian gaming industry was valued at R10 billion in 2010 and rose to end value of R13.0 billion in 2011, accounting an increase of 30% growth in just one year! These astonishing figures are estimated to touch up to R46.0 billion by the year 2016. The mobile gaming market generated revenues of about R4.3 billion during the same year, growing an astounding 55% from the year before.

With mobile gaming coming to the fore, gaming is now appealing to a larger, broader audience beyond the young male gaming enthusiast. Also, factors such as a young demographic, education, rising disposable incomes, IT development and growth in telecom are the primary reasons why gaming is gaining a strong foothold in the country.

The gaming industry in India is picking up and certainly provides a tremendous opportunity. In fact, many game developers as well as hardware producers have realised the potential of this industry which is why they are aggressively working towards building a strong ecosystem around it.

How is a visual technologies company setting its foot firmly in the supercomputing space?

Nvidia is a driving force in high performance computing space and out constant endeavour is to innovate technology in order accelerate research in areas that are of strategic importance to India. GPUs which were traditionally known for powering graphics cards or games consoles are now changing the future of supercomputing. Our Tesla brand is something we are extremely proud of because it?s making a very real difference is solving the world?s most complex problems, from financial modeling to finding a cure for cancer.

India?s most powerful supercomputer, the SAGA System, developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (IRSO), holds the 86th position on the Top 500 global supercomputers list. According to ISRO, GPUs enabled them to reduce the time to create, simulate and verify a new launch vehicle design from weeks to days, while improving the overall quality of the design dramatically.

Five out of India?s top 20 supercomputers that have global capabilities in the area of high performance computing are powered by Nvidia GPUs and we see this number rising in the years to come.