Inside Nvidia HQ: What a $2T Company’s Office Looks Like | WSJ Open Office

Summary

Nvidia built two new spaceship-like office buildings called Endeavor and Voyager to foster collaboration and efficiency among its employees. They used their own technology to simulate daylight and acoustics when designing the open offices. The buildings have triangular motifs inspired by Nvidia's origins in 3D graphics, as well as futuristic shapes alluding to the company's role powering AI innovation. With amenities like a living wall, on-site bar, and miles of staircases, the office spaces reflect Nvidia's playful soul and aim to propel their chip design work to the next level.

Takeaways

• 😊 Nvidia designed its new headquarters buildings Voyager and Endeavor to foster collaboration and connections between its employees
• 👷‍♂️ The triangle shape seen throughout the buildings ties back to Nvidia's origins with 3D computer graphics
• 🌿 Over 14,000 plants are incorporated into Voyager to balance the tech and bring nature into the space
• 😎 The rooftops and ceilings have triangular skylights but also insulation to absorb sound in the open offices
• 🏢 The outdoor park connects the two buildings so Nvidians can easily move between them in just 2 minutes
• ⚙️ Nvidia used its own visualization software when designing the buildings to simulate daylight and other elements
• 🚶‍♂️ The many staircases encourage movement and chance encounters between employees
• 🔬Dedicated lab spaces are shielded from daylight for optimal working conditions
• 💡AI and Nvidia's own technology will likely play a major role in designing any future expansion buildings
• 👽The futuristic shapes and designs reflect Nvidia's forward-thinking culture and aspirations

Q & A

What is the symbolism behind the triangle motif used throughout the Nvidia buildings?

The triangle motif reflects the origins of the company in 3D graphics, which were based on drawing triangles.

How did Nvidia use their own technology to help design the new headquarters?

Nvidia used their visualization tools and chips to simulate daylight and optimize how much natural light comes into the buildings through the skylights.

What are some of the key differences in layout between the Endeavor and Voyager buildings?

Endeavor feels more inwardly focused, while Voyager is wide open with the 'mountain' design spreading collaboration spaces across floors. Voyager also has more lab space.

How did the building design aim to maximize efficiency for employees?

There are many staircases to promote movement and interaction. Hallways provide shortcuts between buildings. The workspace is mainly open-plan to enable collaboration.

Why did they opt for an open-plan workspace instead of cubicles?

Studies have shown that visual connections enabled by open-plan allow for quicker iteration times and deeper relationships important for complex work.

How did they aim to mitigate noise issues from the open-plan layout?

The shaped roof helps diffuse and absorb sound reflections. There is also acoustic insulation in the ceiling.

Why is part of Voyager shielded from daylight?

The middle section houses large lab spaces where consistent lighting conditions are needed for technology development.

How much total lab space is there in Voyager?

There is over 42,000 square feet of lab space in Voyager alone, making up over 15% of the total area.

Why is there so much greenery incorporated into the buildings?

The plants help balance out and soften the focus on technology, making the spaces more inviting and lively.

Do the designers think Nvidia will use AI in future campus buildings?

Yes, they believe AI will undoubtedly play an assistant role in constructing and designing future spaces to extend capabilities.

Outlines

00:00

😄 Nvidia's futuristic campus powered by their own tech

Paragraph 1 describes Nvidia's new 500,000 sq ft Endeavor and 750,000 sq ft Voyager office buildings on their Santa Clara campus. Nvidia used their own visualization tools and chips to help design the spaces, focusing on natural light, acoustics, and layouts that connect people and ideas. The triangle shape features heavily as an homage to Nvidia's graphics origins.

05:02

🌞 Balancing light and efficiency across campus

Paragraph 2 explains how Nvidia simulated daylight and other conditions using their tech while designing the spaces. This helped create ideal working environments across the 42,000 sq ft of labs and open office spaces housing 5,000 employees. Despite the openness, acoustics and quick access between buildings boost efficiency.

Keywords

💡NVIDIA headquarters

NVIDIA's headquarters campus is located in Santa Clara, California and features two new buildings called Endeavor and Voyager. These futuristic spaces were designed to optimize collaboration, efficiency, and innovation among NVIDIA's over 5,000 employees known as 'Nvidians'.

💡GPU chips

GPU (graphics processing unit) chips are NVIDIA's core technology and area of innovation. The company used its own GPU chips and software in designing and visualizing the new headquarters to achieve the perfect daylight and connections between spaces.

💡open office

The buildings use an open office layout to visually connect employees rather than cubicles. Research shows this facilitates communication, relationships, and ultimately better work even if it is noisier.

💡acoustics

Special triangular roofing and insulation absorbs sound in the large open workspaces to offset noise issues from bringing thousands of employees together.

💡stairs and paths

The buildings have an extensive network of stairs and walkways to minimize travel times between spaces and bring people together, with the longest trip between buildings clocking in at just 2 minutes 30 seconds.

💡simulation

NVIDIA used its visualization and simulation tools powered by its own GPUs to model daylight, acoustics, and other elements in the spaces before constructing them. This led to extremely accurate representations.

💡lab spaces

There are over 42,000 sq ft of research lab spaces at the core of Voyager building, representing 15% of its total area. These labs are essential for designers and engineers innovating on GPU chips and other technologies.

💡plants and green walls

In contrast to the high tech labs, the buildings also integrate abundant greenery totaling 14,000 plants including a huge living wall. This brings natural balance to the environment.

💡campus expansion

The two buildings are the first NVIDIA has owned, moving from leased offices. With ample room to continue growing on site, NVIDIA plans to add a potential third spaceship building in the future.

💡AI integration

As a leader in AI software and applications, NVIDIA intends to utilize AI tools in constructing and potentially designing extensions or additions to its campus. This will enhance innovations in its spaces.

Highlights

Nvidia used its own tech to design its new headquarters

The buildings are inspired by Nvidia's graphics chips

The spaces promote collaboration through open floor plans

Acoustic design minimizes noise in the open spaces

Visual connections enable collaboration even without audio

More staircases promote chance encounters and connections

Short walking paths connect the buildings efficiently

Nvidia simulated the buildings before construction

The simulation matched reality very closely

Shielded lab spaces don't get daylight

Abundant plants bring nature into the high-tech spaces

The owned buildings signify Nvidia's maturity

There's room to expand further in the future

AI may assist in designing future buildings

Future applications of AI are still unknown

Transcripts

- [Adam] At Nvidia's headquarters,

the chips that propelled the company

to a 2 trillion dollar valuation

were used in custom software

that helped design this office.

- We're using a lot of their visualization tools

to help optimize the daylight that's coming in here.

- We got to test out our technology on our own project.

- [Adam] And beyond powering the program

that visualized the office,

NVIDIA's chips also served

as the inspiration for these futuristic buildings.

- These projects are all about the soul of Nvidia.

- [Adam] So what does the soul

of one of the most sought after places to work look like

and how does NVIDIA's space fuel the work,

powering the AI revolution?

I took a tour and chased down a robot to find out.

- [Adam] On NVIDIA's campus in Santa Clara, California,

these two buildings are the focus.

The 500,000 square foot Endeavor,

and the 750,000 square foot Voyager.

Yes, those are Star Trek references.

An outdoor park connects these two buildings.

- Our triangle motif here is really a reflection

of the origins of the company.

3D graphics were based originally on drawing triangles.

- [Adam] The triangle is everywhere.

From windows to walkways,

to this corrugated structure.

- This is the heart.

The heart contains many of our most active spaces.

Reception, conference rooms, coffee breaks.

- [Adam] The heart sits at the center of Endeavor,

which was the first of the two new buildings

to open on campus.

In the middle of Voyager, there's this.

- We call it the mountain

and effect what we did was take that heart

and spread it open across the surface of that mountain.

- Got it.

The effect of this is

that Endeavor feels inwardly focused,

whereas Voyager is wide open.

- It's like a highrise building on three and a half floors.

- [Adam] But NVIDIA's goals for the project

to foster collaboration and maximize efficiency

for its employees called Nvidians,

bring shared purpose to these two buildings.

- The CEO Jensen was very, very involved personally

with the design here.

For them, chip design,

it's all about connections.

How do you move information around on a silicon wafer.

What they do is they design the connections first.

- [Adam] In Voyager and Endeavor,

there are workspaces for roughly 5,000 Nvidians total.

The project's leaders decided the best layout

for connecting workers was an open office.

- We always talked about the ideal way of getting everybody

to collaborate to get everybody in one room,

- [Adam] But as anyone who's worked

in a big open room knows,

noise can be a problem.

- I mean, if we're in one room with 3,500 people,

that can be incredibly noisy.

- Yeah.

- So the shaping of the roof helps mitigate the sound.

The whole thing is faceted.

So the sound as it reflects,

it's not reflecting back to you,

it's reflecting elsewhere.

And behind that, there's acoustical insulation there.

So the sound goes and gets absorbed by the roof.

- [Adam] Nvidia said findings

in this MIT study helped motivate the switch

from the cubicle filled spaces in its older offices

to what we see in these newer buildings.

- There's a visual connection,

even if there's not an audio connection,

and that allows, that quicker iteration,

allows those deeper relationships

that are important to building a very complex product.

- So you're saying,

it's not just about giving employees an opportunity

to connect and socialize,

but you're saying the actual work

that they then do together is better?

- Absolutely, yes.

- And that's just by being able to see one another.

- It starts with that.

- And unless you never leave a desk,

it would be tough to avoid running into other Nvidians here,

especially on the stairs.

- So what you see along the mountain are these cabins

and at the very top, that's the bar.

- It's a little bit of a metaphor for the work day.

Your first coffee, your second coffee,

and now you can have a drink.

(people laughing)

I love it.

- [Adam] In Voyager alone, there are 19 staircases,

some blazing trails up the mountain.

- We have way more stairs than you need technically to exit.

The elevators are pretty tucked away.

They're there, yeah.

You know, people do need elevators,

but it's not front and center,

and that's again, something I think

that's pretty unique to Nvidia.

- [Adam] But NVIDIA's paths through the office

aren't meandering.

The hallways that cut through the heart, for example,

provide shortcuts across Endeavor,

and this extends outside too.

- When we built the second part of this campus,

which is Voyager and the park in between,

we connected them at both levels

so that the trip between the two is as short as possible.

- [Adam] How short?

We tested it.

How long do you think it's gonna take us

to get from here to Voyager?

- Shouldn't take more than two minutes.

- Let's start the timer and go.

- How did we do?

- Timer stops.

We were so close,

2:30.

2:30.

2:30.

Maybe we were a little leisurely.

Maybe we were looking at the trees, but 2:30.

But getting to meetings and coworkers

is only part of optimizing efficiency.

Nvidia wanted to create the ideal working conditions,

and this is where NVIDIA's tech came in.

- One of the key principles that Nvidia uses

as a company is simulation.

We want to be able to simulate a world before we build it.

- We as architects, you probably see a lot of renderings

that we create, but there's renderings,

you know, no matter how photoreal they are,

it's still kind of an illustration

of what we think the reality's gonna be.

- [Adam] So Nvidia put its chips to work,

creating a program that could, for example,

simulate how sun would pass through the skylights.

- If I showed you those images that we had simulated

of a space like this,

it looks almost identical

to what came out right

in terms of what the feeling of this daylight is.

- [Adam] In total,

there are 511 triangular skylights dotting the ceilings

of the two buildings,

but not every area is meant to get light.

The center of the mountain is shielded from daylight,

because-

- Here on this floor, we have large labs.

In the past, most of our lab spaces were carved out

of a traditional office building.

So it was a conference room turned into a lab,

or a janitor's closet.

- [Adam] Nvidia has 42,000 square feet of lab space

in Voyager alone.

That's more than 15%

of the space in the building.

Balancing that tech in both buildings is a lot of green.

There's this 80 foot living wall in Endeavor,

and more than 14,000 plants in Voyager.

You enter Nvidia's headquarters,

a company known for GPUs and powering AI,

and the first thing you see is a huge plant wall.

- Yeah.

It becomes a relic in some ways

if they put their technology up.

- [Adam] And these buildings,

which are the first ones,

the 30-year-old company has ever owned,

suggest Nvidia doesn't plan

on becoming a relic either.

- We see Apple, Google, Meta,

now this, right?

They're really designing buildings for themselves.

They've matured to a point where,

yeah, they're like a multi-trillion dollar company.

They need spaces like this

that really kind of can take 'em to the next level.

- [Adam] Nvidia has room to grow.

It could even add a third spaceship.

Would you consider using AI in some way?

Could it possibly play a role in a future space?

- AI undoubtedly will be part

of the construction of that next building.

It's an assistant.

It extends our reach.

- I can only imagine, you know what the possibilities are

if we started design again today,

and I would hazard to guess with Nvidia,

it would be something we haven't even thought about.

- This is the kind of casual connection

that all the designers are hoping for.