Nvidia, the world's third-most valuable company by market cap at $2.871 trillion, fulfilled its promise that its 2025 GTC event would be bigger and better than ever, prompting its CEO, Jensen Huang, to call it "the Super Bowl of AI." After all, the five-day conference was packed with 1,000 on-stage sessions, 400-plus exhibits, hands-on training workshops, and no shortage of networking opportunities for the greatest minds in tech. 

AI chip developer Nvidia hosted its annual global artificial intelligence conference, Nvidia GTC (short for GPU Technology Conference), March 17–21 at the 520,000-square-foot San Jose McEnery Convention Center, just seven miles from its home base in Santa Clara, Calif. 

Attendance numbers could not be confirmed by Nvida, but estimates range from 20,000 to 25,000. Visit San Jose noted in a GTC 2025 “Conference Highlights” report that 20,000 guests descended on the convention center (up from roughly 16,000 last year), which was decked out in Nvidia’s iconic neon green and black brand colors.  

True to Nvidia’s form as profoundly revolutionary in the tech world and beyond, the 2025 GTC event impressively generated an estimated $15 million+ in economic impact for the city, according to Visit San Jose.  

The figure marks massive growth from GTC’s earliest days in 2009, when Nvidia was valued at $8 billion and hosted the annual event at the Fairmont San Jose hotel, where meeting rooms were adorned in white poster boards of computer research for just 1,500 attendees. The New York Times described the scene as “something of a science fair.” 

GTC Drives Hotel Boom and Dining Frenzy in San Jose 

These days, however, much of GTC’s multimillion-dollar impact came from the 7,500 total hotel rooms that visitors booked to attend the sold-out conference. In fact, hotel rooms became so in demand for GTC, that prices soared as high as $1,800 per night, according to The NY Times. 

Attendees also shelled money out to local restaurants that hosted GTC’s nightly “Dinner With Strangers” networking events, as the cost of dinner wasn’t included in GTC’s registration fees, which capped out at $2,295 for all elements of the conference across all five days. The meals took place at pre-reserved tables in 20 restaurants across around downtown San Jose serving a variety of cuisines at a range of price points. GTC attendees could book a seat at the table using the GTC App. Nvidia didn’t divulge which restaurants played host to these networking meals. 

Serving up Nvidia-Inspired Breakfast Bytes 

However, Denny’s—the 24-hour, fast-casual chain where Huang worked at age 15 and later came up with the idea for Nvidia's game-changing chip—loudly and proudly attended GTC 2025 with its “Mobile Diner.” The food truck parked outside of the SAP Center, where Huang hosted his much-anticipated keynote on March 18, and served up free samples of Nvidia Breakfast Bytes, a temporary menu item that hit Denny’s restaurants the following day.  

The Bytes consist of four silver-dollar buttermilk pancakes and four sausage links, inspired by Huang’s affinity for wrapping the pancakes around the sausage to make a type of breakfast taco, as he did when working at the restaurant with Nvidia cofounders Chris Malachowski and Curtis Priem back in the ‘90s. Denny’s CEO Kelli Valade called the Mobile Diner a full-circle moment in a LinkedIn post alongside an image of her and Huang, each in red Denny’s aprons with Nvidia Breakfast Bytes in hand. 

Huang Takes the Stage for Unscripted Keynote 

But perhaps the most buzzed-about of Huang’s appearances at GTC 2025 was his two hour-long keynote session where he ditched the apron for his signature black tee and leather jacket look. The keynote took place at the SAP Center’s National Hockey League arena in front of 25,000 eager attendees—and without a teleprompter.  

“There are no scripts, there’s no teleprompter,” Huang told audience members. He went on to discuss everything from AI as a revenue-generating business (he mentioned “revenue” 10 times in his keynote this year vs. just once last year) to Nvidia’s plans to roll out new chips: The Blackwell Ultra, which enables AI reasoning, will hit the market later this year, while its next-gen Vera Rubin and Feynman chips will be released in 2027 and 2028, respectively. 

Nvidia didn’t respond to CEN’s request for comment about the event by press time. 

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