Nvidia ( NVDA -0.75%) has built a dominant position in one of the highest-growth areas around: artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That has helped it generate enormous levels of revenue, for example, $130 billion last year; register quadruple-digit gains in stock price over the past five years; and become one of the most-watched tech companies.

Huang's joke at Nvidia's big AI conference this week highlights potential billion-dollar impacts on tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and Meta.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang offered a quantum-level climb-down on Thursday, after spooking quantum-computing companies earlier this year with his assessment that their efforts wouldn’t be “very useful” for 15 to 30 years.