Nvidia: how the chip company became German industry's elite partner
Mercedes, Siemens, Bosch – Nvidia is landing one major German contract after another. A visit to the heart of the chip company.
What is at stake
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is increasingly walking in and out of German corporate headquarters. Bosch, Mercedes, Siemens: the chip specialist from Santa Clara has rapidly become one of the most important suppliers to German industry. The stock market balance is clear: Nvidia is worth five times as much as Siemens while generating less than half of its revenue. Huang, a Taiwanese immigrant, built Nvidia into the world’s most valuable chip company in three decades. What makes this firm so attractive to Germany’s traditional industrial players?
The nerve centre
In the south of Silicon Valley, in Santa Clara, Nvidia has built a futuristic headquarters: the “Voyager” complex with 70,000 square metres of space, plus the adjacent “Endeavor” building. The names are no coincidence – they refer to spacecraft from “Star Trek.” The roof structure resembles tents; the office floors are open plan. “At our company, everyone has a good view from their desk,” says Danny Shapiro, head of the automotive division. Huang’s architectural statement: we are not just building chips, we are building the future.
Why German corporations are knocking on the door
Nvidia provides two things that German industry urgently needs. First: high-performance chips for artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, robotics and simulation. Second: software tools such as the Omniverse platform, on which digital twins of entire factories can run. Mercedes is using Nvidia chips for its next vehicle generation. Siemens is building digital replicas of its factories on Omniverse. Bosch is developing driver-assistance systems. These partnerships go deep into the long-term strategy of German industry.
What this means for Germany
The Nvidia story is an ambivalent one. On one hand, it is evidence that German corporations must depend on American silicon and American software for future technologies. On the other, it shows that they have understood the scale of what is coming. The question of how Europe builds its own chip and AI infrastructure is not becoming smaller as a result – it is becoming larger. Nvidia’s success is a warning signal, and an invitation to contribute something of their own.
I wrote the full piece together with Joachim Hofer and Axel Höpner for Handelsblatt.