By Khac Phu Nguyen
Publication Date: 2026-01-21 19:20:00
This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Executives at Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) used the World Economic Forum in Davos to reframe the debate around artificial intelligence and jobs, arguing that the AI boom is already creating meaningful demand across the real economy. Speaking with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Jensen Huang downplayed longer-term labor disruption concerns and instead pointed to an accelerating need for skilled vocational workers as data center construction scales globally. Huang said plumbers, electricians, and construction workers are increasingly essential to building the infrastructure that trains and runs AI systems, describing the trend as part of one of the largest infrastructure buildouts in history that could involve trillions of dollars of investment.
Huang said wages for these roles have risen sharply as companies race to expand capacity, noting that many vocational workers are now able to command six-figure salaries without advanced academic credentials. His comments echoed remarks earlier in the week from Palantir CEO Alex Karp, who said AI could boost local employment and reduce the need for large-scale immigration, as well as from CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) CEO Michael Intrator, who emphasized the growing physicality of the AI boom. The surge in construction has directly benefited Nvidia, the leading supplier of AI data center chips, which is on track to generate nearly $200 billion in data center…
