Jensen Huang: ‘Now is a great time for electricians and plumbers’

At the World Economic Forum (WEF) taking place in Davos (Switzerland) this week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the current period is great for skilled workers because the AI ​​boom creates a huge demand for building data centers. “It’s great that this involves technical skills and we’re going to need a lot of plumbers, electricians, masons, steel workers,” he told BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

He said the US is seeing a sharp increase in demand for skilled workers to help build AI infrastructure, with salaries almost doubling in some cases. Huang describes the AI ​​craze as “the largest wave of infrastructure construction in human history” and will create a lot of jobs.

A report by consulting firm McKinsey estimates that by 2023-2030, the US will need an additional 130,000 trained electricians, 240,000 construction workers and 150,000 construction supervisors.

According to Nvidia’s boss, people who build chip, computer or AI factories can receive salaries of hundreds of thousands of dollars. “Anyone can make a good living without having a PhD in computer science,” he said.

The impact of AI on the labor market is a hot topic at WEF this year. Jessen Huang has long argued that AI is not a “mass job destroyer” as some fear. He uses the radiology industry as an example: while AI helps automate some of the work of doctors, the number of jobs in this industry is actually increasing.

“AI Godfather” Geoffrey Hinton also said that manual labor would be safer against AI. However, the reason he gave was that artificial intelligence takes longer to achieve the necessary dexterity.