Artificial intelligence is unlikely to eliminate jobs on a large scale, according to Jensen Huang, who says the technology will actually require millions of workers to build and maintain the massive infrastructure needed to run it.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Huang wrote that AI is becoming “essential infrastructure, like electricity and the internet.” He said the factories producing chips, the systems assembling computers and the data centers housing AI technology are driving what could become the largest infrastructure buildout in human history.
“We’ve only just started,” Huang said, noting that the industry has invested only a few hundred billion dollars so far, while trillions of dollars more will be required to complete the buildout. “The labor needed to support this expansion is enormous.”
According to Huang, AI data centers require a wide range of skilled workers, including electricians, plumbers, steelworkers, network technicians and operators. Many of these roles are well-paid and currently in short supply.
Huang’s company, Nvidia, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom. As a dominant supplier of AI hardware, its chips are widely used for training and running AI systems. Demand for those chips has surged since the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI, which helped ignite the global race to develop AI technologies. Since 2023, Nvidia’s share price has climbed more than 1,300%.
AI infrastructure as a “five-layer cake”
Huang described the AI ecosystem as a “five-layer cake” consisting of energy, AI chips, infrastructure, AI models and finally applications.
He added that supporting AI requires rethinking traditional computing infrastructure. Unlike conventional software, which simply retrieves stored instructions, AI systems must reason and generate intelligence on demand, requiring entirely new types of computing systems and facilities.
“Much of the infrastructure needed for AI still hasn’t been built, much of the workforce has yet to be trained, and many of the opportunities remain untapped,” said Jensen Huang.
He added that the scale of the AI expansion is why it spans so many industries simultaneously and will not be limited to a single country or sector. “Every company will adopt AI, and every nation will work to build it,” Huang said.
Huang’s comments come at a time when several companies across different industries have announced major layoffs, often citing efficiency gains from artificial intelligence.
Last month, Block, Inc. reduced its workforce by 40%, a move co-founder Jack Dorsey attributed to the company’s growing use of AI in its payments operations.
Other firms have taken similar steps. Social media platform Pinterest and chemical giant Dow also pointed to AI-driven efficiency as a factor behind layoffs that together affected more than 5,000 employees earlier this year.
Meanwhile, analysts at Goldman Sachs said last month that job losses linked to AI have been “visible but moderate.” They estimate the technology could push the US unemployment rate slightly higher this year — rising from 4.4% to around 4.5% by the end of the year.
