NVIDIA, a technology company and corporation based in Santa Clara, is hosting its GTC AI Conference from March 17 to March 21 triggering multiple road closures in parts of downtown San José.
The conference serves as an opportunity for people to connect with developers and learn more about artificial intelligence and its contribution to humanity, according to NVIDIA’s webpage.
Michelle Smith-McDonald, senior director of media relations at San José State, confirmed the reasoning for the road closures in an email sent to the Spartan Daily which said, “(The road closures) are city-initiated street closures due to the NVIDIA GTC event.”
Roads had started to close in the area before the conference started. Some of the closures started on March. 12, according to an Instagram post from the university.
Eric Cross, SJSU Parking Services manager, made it clear that students should not experience a major effect from the road closures.
“To my knowledge, the NVIDIA conference will not be having a major impact on the traffic lanes going to any of the parking lanes,” Cross said. “I was informed that traffic would be coming from downtown.”
Five street closures are set to occur downtown, according to a webpage from San José Downtown.
The five closures are set to occur on San Carlos Street, both northbound and southbound Market Street, both directions of Park Avenue and Viola Avenue.
In addition to these street closures, there will be a 30-minute closure to display showcases on the intersection of Market St and San Carlos St for the duration of the conference which can also be found on the same source.
These closures are scheduled to end on March 22, according to the same Instagram post from SJSU.
Despite these setbacks on the street, Associated Students Vice President Chima Nwokolo is looking at the positives and seeing the good of the conference.
“I think the NVIDIA conference in downtown this week will show and present the rise of AI in Silicon Valley as we are already seeing it with ChatGPT,” Nwokolo said. “I think many of our SJSU students will take this opportunity to learn more about the field of AI, especially those who look to be involved in the tech and innovation workforce.”
