At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang offered a surprising perspective on employment in the age of artificial intelligence.
While many worry about job displacement, Huang painted a picture of unprecedented opportunity, particularly for workers in traditional trades.
“This is the largest infrastructure buildout in human history,” Huang told BlackRock CEO Larry Fink during their conversation. The construction of what he calls “AI factories” requires an army of skilled tradespeople. “We’re going to have plumbers and electricians and construction and steel workers and network technicians and people who install and fit out the equipment.”
The economic impact is already visible. “In the United States we’re seeing quite a significant boom in this area. Salaries have gone up nearly doubled,” Huang noted. “We’re talking about six figure salaries for people who are building chip factories or computer factories or AI factories.”
He emphasized the democratic nature of these opportunities: “Everybody should be able to make a great living. You don’t need to have a PhD in computer science to do so.”
Regarding concerns about AI replacing knowledge workers, Huang offered a framework for understanding AI’s true impact. He distinguished between the purpose of a job and its tasks.
“The question is what is the purpose of your job,” he explained, citing radiologists as an example. While AI now helps them study scans infinitely faster, “the number of radiologists have gone up” because they can see more patients and spend more time on diagnosis rather than just scan analysis.
Similarly, nurses who previously spent half their time charting can now use AI for documentation, allowing more patient interaction. “AI is increasing their productivity. As a result the hospitals are doing better. They want to hire more people.”
His overall message emphasized opportunity over displacement. He urged every country to build AI infrastructure and emphasized AI’s accessibility: “AI is super easy to use. It is the easiest software to use in history.” He encouraged everyone to learn AI skills, noting that “all of you can be programmers now.”
For developing nations and Europe specifically, Huang sees AI as a leveling force that can “close the technology divide” and leverage existing industrial strengths into the robotics era, provided there is sufficient investment in energy infrastructure and skilled trades.
