
Nvidia said its GPU Technology Conference is still on track to happen in March despite rising concerns about a coronavirus outbreak in the United States. However, the company said it's implementing several precautionary measures to ensure attendees' healthy and safety.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company's GPU Technology Conference, or GTC, is set to happen March 22-26 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, Calif. More than 10,000 attendees are expected to converge for programming focused on Nvidia GPU solutions for data center, visualization and artificial intelligence workloads, among other things.
[Related: IDC Forecasts Steeper Drop In 2020 PC Sales Due To Coronavirus]
"GTC is definitely on," said Craig Weinstein, vice president of Nvidia's Americas organization, in an interview with CRN on Tuesday. "With the coronavirus, there were some concerns about other events around the world. It's one of our most important events, and we plan to host it, and we believe it will be just as important, if not bigger than the ones we've had one the past."
On Wednesday night, Nvidia added a page to its GTC website addressing the measures the company and the convention center are taking to address concerns about coronavirus. They include: the use of electrostatic sprayers to disinfect high-traffic areas daily, frequent disinfection of all common touch areas such as door handles and stair railings and a significant increase in the deployment of hand sanitizers throughout the convention center.
The company said it's also holding daily pre-shift safety meetings for employees, working with the city of San Jose to ensure local hotels and venues are increasing cleanliness and hygiene regions, and asking exhibitors to regularly disinfect demonstration systems and other areas touched by attendees.
In addition, Nvidia is asking attendees to wash their hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, use alcohol-based hand sanitizer when soap and water are not available, cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue and then throw it away, and avoid contact with eyes, nose and mouth with untouched hands. The company also said attendees should stay home or at their hotel if they have any symptoms of illness.
The company said the measures are based on practices set out by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"NVIDIA is closely monitoring the coronavirus situation, which remains fluid," the company said on the web page. "The health and safety of GTC attendees and exhibitors is our top priority, and we are implementing appropriate precautionary measures."
Nvidia's plan to hold GTC as scheduled comes as some vendors cancel or postpone conferences or conference appearances in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19. Most recently, HP announced it would postpone its annual partner conference, Reinvent, while the RSA Conference 2020 went on this week in San Francisco despite cancellations from IBM, Verizon and other companies.
related stories
Video
trending stories
sponsored resources

Cysurance
Cyber Insurance 360

Carbonite
Cloud Storage 360

Application Integration 360

Tenable
Cyber Risk 360

NPD
Industry Trends 360

Channel Chief Showcase

Smart 3rd Party
3rd Party Maintenance 360

Cradlepoint
5g for Business 360

Cato Networks
SASE & SD-WAN 360

Trend Micro
Trend Micro Learning Center

CyberPower
CyberPower

Veeam
Veeam

Comcast Business
Comcast Business Learning Center

Dell Technologies
Dell Technologies Storage Learning Center

Fujifilm
Fujifilm

BlackBerry
BlackBerry Learning Center

Acer
Remote Workforce 360

Webroot
Webroot Learning Center

Comm100
Collaboration & Communications 360

Partner Program Guide Showcase

Dell Technologies
Microsoft HCI Solutions from Dell Technologies Learning Center

Hitachi Vantara
Hitachi Vantara

eSentire
Managed Detection and Response 360

Terranova Security
Cybersecurity 360

N-able
MSP Automation Solutions 360

CRN Showcase

APC by Schneider Electric
Digital Services for Edge Learning Center

Dell Technologies
Dell Technologies Server Learning Center

Dell Technologies
Dell Technologies Cloud Learning Center

Cyber Protection 360

VMware

EPOS
EPOS

Sophos
Sophos Cybersecurity Learning Center

Vonage
Vonage

Sherweb
Sherweb

Vertiv
Edge Computing Learning Center

Wasabi
Wasabi

iboss
Cloud SASE Platform 360
