Nvidia chief executive urged world leaders to treat artificial intelligence like essential utilities, dismissing job-loss concerns as “nonsense”.
The chief executive of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, has called on G20 ministers to expand data-centre capacity to power the artificial intelligence revolution, warning that nations risk being left behind if leaders focus heavily on the technology’s potential dangers.
Speaking on the second day of a G20 summit in North Carolina—where the Trump administration gathered top technology executives to present their vision to ministers from the world’s major economies—Huang urged governments to view artificial intelligence as a core national asset.
“In the end, what every single country will have to recognise is that [AI] is infrastructure, just as it’s water, roads, electricity, the internet,” Huang told attending ministers, emphasising that every nation must build its own digital foundation to support its local economy.
Nvidia has been the primary force behind the ongoing generative AI boom, a surge that has elevated the firm to become the world’s most valuable publicly listed company. Its graphics processing units (GPUs), deployed in specialised data centres globally, serve as the critical hardware for training complex AI models.
Huang explained that such facilities offer the essential “digital intellectual capacity” required to empower researchers, students, industries, and start-ups.
Addressing widespread public anxiety over automation, the Nvidia chief firmly dismissed claims that the technology would trigger mass unemployment. “The idea that somehow all the jobs are going to be eliminated or removed—that’s just nonsense,” Huang said. He argued that whilst specific tasks will be automated, the core purpose of human roles will remain intact.
Warning against alarmist rhetoric, Huang noted that the worst possible outcome for any nation would be failing to adopt AI due to fear and uncertainty.
Echoing recent comments made by Elon Musk, Huang also cautioned governments against over-regulating the sector. “Don’t regulate hypothetical theoretical harm, regulate actual and pragmatic harm,” he urged.
The panel was moderated by US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, who praised Huang as an “American treasure” for leading the technology sector into uncharted territory.
The G20 discussions took place amid a growing public backlash in the United States over the expansion of energy-intensive AI data centres—an issue gaining political traction ahead of the US midterm elections in November. President Donald Trump addressed the controversy earlier in the week, criticising opponents of data-centre construction and warning that resisting AI development would leave regions “backwards and poor”.
