Fears that A.I. could displace human workers have become a defining concern for younger generations. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sees it differently. The technology, he argues, has “kick-started a revolutionary wave”—one today’s graduates are well positioned to ride. “I cannot imagine a more exciting time to begin your life’s work,” Huang said during a keynote address at Carnegie Mellon University’s commencement ceremony yesterday (May 10). Rather than shy away from A.I., he urged graduates to embrace it. “A.I. is not likely to replace you, but someone using A.I. better than you might,” said Huang. “This is your moment to help shape what comes next—so run, don’t walk.”
Huang, 63, was born in Taiwan but began attending boarding school in rural Kentucky at age nine. He later graduated from Oregon State University in 1984, at “the beginning of the PC revolution,” and co-founded Nvidia the following decade. The chipmaker’s early years in computer gaming were rocky, including a near-bankruptcy scare in 1996.
Still, Huang’s leadership—and a well-timed pivot toward A.I. chips in the mid-2000s—has since turned Nvidia into the world’s most valuable public company, with a market capitalization of $5.3 trillion. The company’s rise has also boosted Huang’s personal fortune; he currently ranks as the world’s eighth-wealthiest person, with an estimated net worth of $188 billion.
Huang, who earned a Master’s degree in electrical engineering after his time in Oregon, also received an honorary Doctor of Science and Technology degree from Carnegie Mellon yesterday. The Pittsburgh-based school is where “A.I. started,” Huang said, pointing to its role in creating the ‘Logic Theorist’ in the 1950s, widely considered the first A.I. program.
If Huang graduated at the dawn of the PC era, today’s students are entering something even bigger: a transformation driven by the rapid spread of A.I. “I have lived through every major computing platform shift: mainframes, PCs, the Internet, mobile and cloud,” he said. “But what is about to happen now is bigger than anything before.”
That shift, however, comes with anxiety about how A.I. could reshape the labor market, especially for young professionals. A growing body of research suggests that early-career roles, particularly in fields like coding and customer service, are declining. Unsurprisingly, concern is rising among younger workers. While about 58 percent of workers expect A.I. to have a high or very high impact on their tasks, those fears are even more pronounced among Gen Z, according to a recent survey from recruitment agency Randstad.
High-profile layoffs linked to A.I. aren’t easing those worries. Earlier this year, Block cut 40 percent of its workforce, citing the technology’s productivity gains. Similar reductions have since been announced at companies including Snap, Meta and Microsoft.
Huang acknowledged that such concerns are natural as A.I. systems take on tasks like writing software, driving cars, and generating images. But he emphasized the technology’s upside, including its potential to narrow technical skill gaps. “Only a fraction of the people in the world know how to write software—now, anyone can ask A.I. to build something useful,” he said.
He is particularly optimistic about job creation tied to the massive buildout of A.I. infrastructure. As companies race to construct the data centers needed to power these systems, Huang said, they will give “America the opportunity to build again. Electricians, plumbers, iron workers, technicians, builders: this is your time.”
This isn’t the first time Huang has highlighted the promise of trade jobs in the A.I. era. Earlier this year, he predicted that workers on such projects could earn “six-figure salaries.” Not all CEOs share his optimism. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned that A.I. could replace half of all entry-level white-collar jobs, while Ford’s Jim Farley and JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon have also raised concerns about how quickly industries can adapt.
Yes, many tasks will become increasingly automated, Huang said. But that doesn’t mean A.I. will replace humans outright. In fields like software engineering and radiology, where A.I. has already shown promise, workers who use the technology can write more code and analyze more scans, potentially increasing demand for their roles and widening the gap with those who don’t adopt it.
“We should not teach fear of the future,” said Huang. “We should engage it with optimism, responsibility and ambition.”
