Why Jensen Huang’s AI Strategy is Built as a Five-Layer Cake

Jensen Huang, the President and CEO of NVIDIA and a leading public-voice on the benefits and potential of AI across business use cases, has joined leaders at the World Economic Forum to discuss the rapid global expansion of the technology.

He set out his plans for helping the world propel AI expansion to the next level, stating that the technology must be viewed as everyday infrastructure.

In conversation with Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO and Co-Chairman of the WEF, NVIDIA’s leader said: “AI is infrastructure and there’s not one country in the world I can’t imagine that you need to have AI as part of your infrastructure, because every country has its electricity, you have your roads - you should have AI as part of your infrastructure.”

He added that nations can easily import AI, saying it "is not so incredibly hard to train these days” and that “with local expertise, you should be able to create models”.

“I really believe that every country should get involved to build AI infrastructure, build your own AI, take advantage of your fundamental natural resources which is your language and culture,” Jensen told the WEF audience, “and have your national intelligence be part of your ecosystem.”

AI is not a single technology

NVIDIA’s success is down to the ambition and strategy that Jensen has set as Founder and CEO. Instead of viewing AI as a single technology, he approaches it as though it’s a “five-layer cake”.

Jensen says the base layer is energy: “It’s [AI] processed in real time and it generates intelligence in real time. It needs energy to do so.”

The second layer of his cake is chips, what he describes as “the layer that I live in: chips and computing infrastructure”.

Above chips is the cloud infrastructure and the fourth layer is centred around AI models. “This is where people think AI is, but don’t forget that in order for those models to happen, you have to have all of the layers underneath it,” Jensen explained.

The final layer is the application layer, the stage where AI finally shows up as useful tools and services that people and companies actually use.

Jensen says that “this layer on top ultimately is where economic benefit will happen”, because it includes AI-powered systems for financial services, healthcare and manufacturing that directly generate value and productivity gains.

This has started what the CEO describes as “the largest infrastructure buildout in human history”.

Where people fit in 

According to Jensen, the AI build out is already creating demand for skilled labour, particularly within trades crafts. “We’re going to have plumbers and electricians and construction and steel workers and network technicians and people who install and fit out the equipment,” he explained.

Beyond the immediate infrastructure industry, he spoke about how AI has become a key tool in radiology, which has not made humans replaceable by the software but has increased the number of radiologists. 

“If you reason from the first principles, not surprisingly, the number of radiologists has gone up,” Jensen said. “The fact that they’re able to study scans now infinitely fast allows them to spend more time with patients.”

In terms of productivity, Jensen used the shortage of roughly five million nurses in the US as an example: “Now they can use AI to do the charting and transcription of patient visits.”

He added: “Hospitals do better, and they hire more nurses. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, AI is increasing productivity, and as a result, they want to hire more people."

Jensen acknowledges that because of this rapidly changing landscape, AI literacy is becoming an essential skill. He said: “It is very clear that it is essential to learn how to use AI, how to direct it, guardrail it, evaluate it.”