Friend of Vera Rubin's Says She Would 'Find It Fun' That Nvidia Named New Chip After Her

Nvidia recently revealed details about its new AI graphics processors, and one of them is named for a scientist familiar to many space fans. Vera Rubin, the namesake for one of Nvidia’s new AI GPU platforms, was the American scientist credited with discovering dark matter early in her career.

Rubin’s long career in astronomy began in the 1940s when she was Vassar College’s sole astronomy undergraduate and extended until her death in 1988 at the age of 88. Rubin was considered a pioneer for women in science fields. She was only the second female astronomer to be admitted to the National Academy of Sciences in 1981, and won a National Medal of Science posthumously in 1993.

This week, Nvidia is showing off some of its new technologies at its annual GTC event for AI developers. As part of its presentations, Nvidia said that the Rubin chips will launch the second half of 2026. It also unveiled another graphics processing unit for around 2028 called Feynman, named after theoretical physicist Richard Feynman. Like other chipmakers, Nvidia has been in a race to scale up its semiconductor technology to keep up with the growing demands of AI companies that need increasing amounts of processing power.

The nod to Rubin would have been appreciated by the late astronomer, said one of her mentees, Dr. Alycia Weinberger, a staff scientist and astrophysicist at Carnegie Science, where Rubin worked for a time.

‘She would find that fun’

“She always believed that the next great discovery was around the corner,” Weinberger said. “So I’m sure she would be excited if people could use the new Nvidia chips and GPUs to do outstanding astronomical observations or data reduction and calculations related to astronomy. I’m sure she would find that fun.”

Weinberger first met Rubin around 1990 at a Women in Science panel when Weinberger was an undergraduate. “It was a real treat for me to meet her at the time,” she said. “I didn’t at all envision that 11 years later, I would be her colleague at Carnegie.”

Weinberger’s fond memories of Rubin are of a woman who was always first in the office every morning. Even though Rubin was officially retired, she continued working late in her life as a senior fellow.

“She kept her office, and she was still at work every day. And I think I saw the most joy from her on days where she was measuring spectra,” Weinberger said. “Spectra is the astronomical technique of breaking up wavelengths into their component, wavelengths, component colors and using them to measure, for example, the velocities of stars in distant galaxies. Everything in astrophysics relies on taking spectra, and she loved observing.”

Rubin, she said, always welcomed contrary points of view and was encouraging of other scientists.

“She was just a lovely person,” Weinberger said.

Rubin was the author of Bright Galaxies Dark Matters and was the subject of a biography, Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond: The LIfe of Astronomer Vera Rubin. A new observatory in Chile that’s named after her will be coming online soon and available to astronomers around the world.