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Economic Times
9 hours ago
- Business
- Economic Times
'Don't be that person who ignores this technology': Nvidia CEO warns AI will rewrite the rules of employment
ETtech Nvidia's Jensen Huang claims the real threat isn't AI itself, but humans skilled in using it. From automating tasks to creating new professions, AI's influence is undeniable. In a bold and unsettling prediction, Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia—the $3.3 trillion chip-making behemoth powering the world's most advanced AI tools—issued a stark warning: 'You're not going to lose your job to an AI, but you're going to lose your job to someone who uses AI.' Speaking to a packed room at the Milken Institute Global Conference on May 6, Huang emphasized that artificial intelligence isn't just a future concern—it's already altering the workplace as we know it. 'Every job will be affected, and immediately. It is unquestionable,' said the 62-year-old tech visionary. The message was loud and clear: those who embrace AI will outrun those who don't. Chris Hyams, CEO of job platform Indeed, echoed Huang's concerns while talking with CNBC Make It . While there may not be jobs that AI can fully automate just yet, nearly two-thirds of roles listed on the site contain tasks AI can handle. In this landscape, humans who can collaborate with, train, and command AI systems are rapidly becoming the most sought-after professionals. And therein lies the new arms race: knowledge. 'There are about 30 million people in the world who know how to program and use this technology to its extreme,' Huang said. 'The instrument we invented, we know how to use. But the other 7-and-a-half billion people don't.' But not every tech leader shares Huang's optimism. Dario Amodei, CEO of AI safety startup Anthropic, painted a grimmer picture. In an interview with Axios , Amodei warned that AI could potentially wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in as little as five years. In his words: 'Cancer is cured, the economy grows at 10% a year, the budget is balanced—and 20% of people don't have jobs.' His prediction isn't just about automation, but about a hiring freeze. As AI evolves, he suggests, companies might stop creating new jobs altogether. Already, companies like Shopify, Duolingo, and Fiverr are requiring employees to use AI in their workflows. At Shopify, AI tools must be exhausted before hiring requests are even considered, as per an internal memo from CEO Tobi Lutke. Despite the unsettling forecasts, Huang remains optimistic about AI's ability to create new kinds of work. Speaking at another event—the Hill and Valley Forum—he explained that machine-generated software is replacing traditional coding. 'What used to be human-coded softwares running on CPUs are now machine learning generated softwares running on GPUs,' he noted. This shift, he argues, is opening up entirely new layers of industry and trade. 'Every single layer of the tooling is being invented right now, and it creates tons of jobs at the next layer,' he added. Both Huang and fellow billionaire Mark Cuban agree: the real risk is falling behind in AI literacy. On his ReThinking podcast appearance, Huang revealed that he often drafts content using tools like ChatGPT and Gemini. He insists that AI isn't just about coding anymore—it's about communication, creativity, and problem-solving. 'If you don't know how to program a computer, you just tell the AI, 'I don't know how to program,' and it will tell you exactly how to,' he explained. 'You could draw a schematic, or a picture, and ask it what to do.' Mark Cuban, meanwhile, has been putting his money where his mouth is. Since 2019, he's funded free AI bootcamps for underprivileged high school students across the U.S., urging them to embrace AI as early as possible. 'Read books and learn how to use AI in every way, shape and form you can,' he advised. When I talk to kids today and they ask me what I would do if I were 12 today, my answer is always the same, read books and learn how to use AI in every way shape and form you can. It is a living library that gives you responses and can help no matter who you are or where you live. — Mark Cuban (@ February 18, 2025 at 5:22 AM Huang's final takeaway wasn't just a forecast—it was a call to action. 'Don't be that person who ignores this technology,' he urged. 'Take advantage of AI.' As artificial intelligence accelerates at lightning speed, the most valuable skill may not be technical ability, but adaptability. Whether you're a student, a manager, or someone just trying to hold onto your career, the future belongs to those who work with AI—not against it.
CNBC
06-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Nvidia CEO says being locked out of China AI market would be 'tremendous loss'
President and CEO of Nvidia Jensen Huang speaks on AI at the return of American manufacturing at the Hill and Valley Forum at the U.S. Capitol on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Tuesday that China's artificial intelligence market will likely reach about $50 billion in the next two to three years, and that missing out on it would be a "tremendous loss." Huang said being able to sell into China would bring back revenue, taxes, and "create lots of jobs here in the United States." "We just have to stay agile," Huang told CNBC's Jon Fortt, in an interview alongside ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott. The tech execs were in Las Vegas for ServiceNow's Knowledge 2025 conference. "Whatever the policies are of the government, whatever is in the best interest of our country, we'll support," Huang said. Nvidia is the leading provider of graphics processing units (GPUs), which have powered the AI boom and lifted the company's market cap to almost $3 trillion. Last month, the Trump administration restricted the shipment of Nvidia's H20 chips to China without a license. That technology, which is related to the Hopper chips used in the rest of the world, was developed to comply with previous U.S. export restrictions. Nvidia said it would take a $5.5 billion quarterly charge due to the restriction, the strongest sign so far that the company's historic growth could be slowed because of U.S.-China trade tensions. Later in April, Huang said at a tech conference in Washington, D.C., that China is "not behind" in AI, and that Huawei is "one of the most formidable technology companies in the world." Shares of Nvidia are down about 15% so far this year after almost tripling in 2023. The company is set to report earnings on May 28. Analysts expect to see revenue growth of 65% from a year earlier to $43.1 billion, according to LSEG. While Nvidia is still expanding much faster than its megacap peers, growth is slowing, as the company reported a revenue increase of more than 260% a year ago. "The world is right now hungry, anxious to engage AI," Huang said on Tuesday. "Let us get the American AI out in front of everybody right now." WATCH: CNBC's full interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Silicon Valley has been trying to shake up defense contracting for years. With Trump, they have a willing audience
As Silicon Valley and Washington build closer ties, tech leaders offered advice on how the government can innovate better and faster. Founders and investors of defense tech startups said the Pentagon should cut down on lead times and raise its levels of risk tolerance in order to develop new weapons. After years of trying to make inroads into the notoriously byzantine defense sector of the U.S. government, Silicon Valley is finally getting its chance. A crop of new defense startups from the Valley are making their way to Washington at a time when the Pentagon is eager for new tech. Many leading figures from tech backed President Donald Trump's reelection, cementing a new bond between an industry that had previously been known for supporting Democrats. A recent conference in the nation's capital highlighted the new close ties between tech and government. The Hill and Valley Forum on Wednesday featured CEOs of top defense tech firms like Palantir's Alex Karp and Anduril's Brian Schimpf, rubbing shoulders with government officials like then-national security advisor Mike Waltz as well as members of the Senate Armed Services Committee such as Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), and Jack Reed (D-R.I.). Against the backdrop of the U.S.'s deepening geopolitical rivalry with China, the tech leaders' entreaties for the government to take a page from its playbook found a welcome audience. The White House is 'absolutely dedicated to reforming the way we acquire technology' in order to modernize the U.S. military, Waltz said, a day before he left his role as national security adviser. Trump signed several executive orders that would streamline how the Department of Defense acquires new defense systems. Defense tech startups had long maintained that current methods left them unable to compete with existing military contractors they viewed as having inferior products but deeper relationships at the Pentagon. The executive orders are 'going after things that always seem to cost too much, deliver too little and take too long,' Waltz told the audience during a panel titled The Arsenal Reimagined: Designing the DoD for the 21st Century Battlefield. 'We can fill this auditorium with defense and acquisition reform think tank pieces, but you have a president and you have a leadership team that are all gas, no brakes, and sometimes we get to help them steer.' At the center of the talks was the Pentagon's inclination for long, extended bidding processes and research projects, and a risk-averse culture that made it harder for the DoD to take chances on experimental tech. 'There's a fundamental reality that innovation is messy and chaotic,' said Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar. On Friday, the White House submitted a 2026 federal budget that included $1.01 trillion in funding for the DoD. Defense tech startups find themselves in an odd position of both being frustrated with the DoD's operations, which they view as stodgy and anti-meritocratic, and, at the same time courting its business. Now, given Silicon Valley's close relationship with the Trump administration, it appears to have found the political allies for the reforms it seeks. But even as the DoD opens up its procurement process to tech companies and startups, they will still face a difficult marketplace, according to Palantir's Karp. 'You're still shooting uphill, but shooting uphill and shooting like to Mount Everest while they're dropping grenades on you is a different story,' said Karp, whose company successfully sued the U.S. Army in 2016 for blocking it from bidding for a government contract. That move is widely considered to have opened the Pentagon's doors to Silicon Valley. Anduril's Schimpf suggested that the Pentagon should place large orders with defense startups. 'If you buy things, capital will flow into defense,' he said. 'Buy things at scale that matter, that move the needle and create opportunities to actually onboard.' Without the guarantees of large contracts, Anduril has 'just written off' developing new versions of products like air-to-air missiles it doesn't believe will ever find a buyer, Schimpf added. 'I don't think in 20 years anyone would buy any air-to-air missile we made, because they've already committed' to buying from someone else, he said. Emil Michael, Trump's nominee for undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, believes the Pentagon could be less reliant on tailor-made defense systems and more open to existing commercial products when looking for new tech to buy. 'We don't need things that are always bespoke,' he said. Michael, who is not yet confirmed for his role in the Pentagon, said the DoD could also benefit from looking at opportunities to save time, not just money. 'Saving time is not something that's inherent in the DoD business model, [which is] about reducing risk to its smallest possible component at the expense of moving as fast as possible.' In discussions about developing new technologies, the conversation often turned to one of Silicon Valley's mantras: fail fast, fail often. The idea, which is a staple of tech culture, is that the many failed iterations of a product don't matter so long as the final version works. 'Failure doesn't matter. It's the magnitude of the success that matters,' said venture capitalist Vinod Khosla when asked about how to make the government more comfortable with risk-taking. Palantir's Sankar suggested increasing competition between Defense Department employees to create, so they would have an 'incentive to beat the bureaucrat two doors down the corridor.' He considers the DoD to be a monopsony that stifled innovation by being the only buyer of defense systems in the marketplace. Instead, Sankar proposed having multiple program managers tasked with overseeing the same project, with the contract ultimately going to the one who delivered a better outcome. 'They would wake up every day like hyper-competitive Americans trying to murder each other,' he said. 'There would be an incentive like 'yeah let's go faster. Let's do this better.'' Speakers at the conference said the ongoing geopolitical tensions and AI arms race with China has only added more urgency to the issue. 'And when you're in an AI race when every innovation could lead to tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, worth of value creation—and you think of value creation as a better defense, shield, more deterrence—every minute you're losing is costly,' said Michael. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Do Not Rely on Chinese AI: Lux Capital's Josh Wolfe
Lux Capital's Co-Founder and Managing Partner Josh Wolfe speaks with Bloomberg's Annmarie Hordern on the sidelines of the Hill and Valley Forum in Washington, D.C. Wolfe talks about why the rest of the world should not rely on Chinese AI models, even as DeepSeek's technology disrupts the AI sector.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Inside Washington's tech summit, Silicon Valley's elite gently make the case for skilled immigration to keep an edge in the AI arms race
During a day-long conference in Washington D.C., leaders from government and the tech industry discussed how the U.S. could keep its lead against China in the AI race. Several speakers mentioned the need for the U.S. to attract the best tech talent from around the world. Those comments come at a time when the country has seen widespread immigration crackdowns that have swept up legal immigrants. In an auditorium in the lower levels of Capitol Hill, tech leaders and policymakers gathered to discuss the AI arms race against China. At the conference, known as the Hill and Valley Forum, luminaries from the tech world—Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Palantir CEO Alex Karp, and venture capitalist Keith Rabois—sat for interviews, while top government officials like Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson gave keynote addresses. Attendees heard panels about self-driving submarines, training warfighters to use AI drones, and AI-powered rare-earth mines. As part of the conference's theme of 'Rebuilding America,' much of the conversation focused on the need for the U.S. to outcompete China in developing the suite of new technologies for the AI age. To do so, the U.S. would need to generate more power, build countless new data centers, and revitalize the Department of Defense's innovation-averse organizational culture, according to conference's speakers. The U.S. would also need to maintain its advantage in recruiting the world's best technologists, including from other countries. 'We need to make sure that the best people in the world are here and that they are building alongside our companies,' said Thrive Capital founder Josh Kushner. Elected officials in attendance also said the same. During a panel on AI policy, Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said if the U.S. could 'keep the brightest minds here,' it would 'win this game' against China. 'Number one, it is a matter of being inviting to other people that can actually create the future with us,' Rounds said. Others at the conference made more overt calls to attract qualified people from the U.S.'s rivals to strengthen the domestic talent pool, while weakening theirs. Lux Capital founder Josh Wolfe, who moderated a panel on the use of AI in national defense, said he hoped to see a 'brain drain coming from China and maybe other adversarial countries' to the U.S. During the same session, Qasar Younis—founder and CEO of Applied Intuition, which develops autonomous vehicles, including for military purposes—pointed to the fact that many companies in Silicon Valley had large numbers of immigrants. 'There should be no question if you're a doctoral student, or if you have a PhD in China, or a PhD in Russia and you want to come to the United States, we should find ways to attract that talent,' Younis said. Younis also said that because of Applied Intuition's close ties to the Pentagon, he worried about espionage from China. He called for an immigration policy that protected U.S. companies from potential Chinese spies but that didn't 'throw the baby out with the bath water.' 'We have to have nuanced policies that specifically address China or other countries, other adversaries, but not everybody,' Younis said. Younis saw sourcing talent from across the world as a boon for the U.S. tech industry. 'There are 8 billion people and we need to continue to attract them,' he said. 'That's our edge.' Vinod Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures who is also a major investor in OpenAI, said 'not getting the right amount of immigration' was one of the biggest risks to U.S. tech's lead against China. 'America's advantage is we get the best talent from anywhere in the world. If there's one thing I'd say we could do, it's to get people who have PhDs in math or physics or AI to [come] here. Proactively go woo them to be here because it will be our largest advantage.' Immigration policy in the tech industry became a flashpoint earlier this year when different factions of the Republican party fought over whether to curb H-1B visas for highly-skilled workers that Silicon Valley usually employs. Some immigration hardliners advocated for reducing the levels of both illegal and legal immigration, while conservative tech leaders, like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, thought that H-1B visas were critical for the industry's continued success. It was a rare rift in an otherwise tight-knit Republican party. (None of the speakers at the Hill and Valley Forum mentioned the months-old H-1B visa controversy.) Immigration is one of President Donald Trump's signature issues. Since taking office, the administration has targeted both illegal and legal immigrants, and particularly those at colleges and universities. International students across the country have been stripped of their legal status. Some have sued the government in court to have their student visas reinstated. Other international students have been detained by authorities. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. On Wednesday, Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) alluded to the administration's actions toward international students. He said the administration 'threatening people with immigration' is going to 'cut down on our talent and on our institutional capacity to innovate.' He also highlighted funding cuts to academic institutions, which had halted ongoing research projects. This story was originally featured on
