Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23 · primary
Themes: US-China Framing · Safety Debate
The claim that advanced AI poses a catastrophic risk is overblown, and the fear does more damage than the technology.
>> There definitely are signs that they're getting more restrictive or looking at heading that way. Are you worried about that? Sure. Uh and I would just I would just add um uh caution >> and this is to the administration to the president to >> any policy maker all policy makers uh before you listen to all the rhetoric before you listen to all the stories um before you manifest some kind of uh artificial intelligence future that is just not true. It is now grounded in fact is completely fact science fiction. The technology is very important of course the technology is powerful.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
Look, over the history of the arc of time, uh, society has become more and more productive as a result of technology. It has created more jobs, not less. If it's created less jobs, you know, we be have 100,000 jobs in the United States. And it's not true. It's created new industries, new opportunities, new markets, new applications. All of that increased the number of the amount of opportunity and growth. And so I think uh the early evidence several years into it. It's now 15 years into the era of AI. Um the evidence is abundantly clear.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
Now, one of the things that I I I like to remind people is that that of all of the technologies we've ever invented, this one closes the technology divide more than any other. And you can prove it. You know this is the first technology in the f first amazing technology in history where anybody can use it. It is the reason why so many people have used chat GPT. It is the if you don't know how to use AI go up to tell AI I don't know how to use AI. Teach me how to use AI. >> And so AI will teach my prompt. >> Yeah. Whatever it is prove my prompt. Exactly.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
Cheaper and more available models increase total consumption of intelligence rather than displacing it, and the volume creates economies of scale.
And so with the right harness uh Nvidia Neimotron is extraordinarily good and you could adapt it customize it uh for the certain skills that you have in mind and it can be completely world class. What are the economics for the proprietary labs if open-source models not just Chinese ones can produce tokens the intelligence cheaper? Fantastic. Um really really what the what the world needs is more people who needs AI. And the the only way that you need AI uh is because you tried it and you realize you want better ones.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
So this Chinese competition is coming fast and furious. What should US AI companies do? these China Chinese models are excellent uh open open- source models that are excellent should be used and so the markets misunderstood the impact of deepseek the first time it's misunderstood Chinese >> yeah it's it's misunderstood the impact of Kimmy again this time I think first of all with great AI open models it's great for the whole industry obviously when there's more if there's great AI even if it's open uh wherever it comes from there will be more use.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
It's no different than databases in the cloud. You know that we could run our own search, but what a hassle is it? Um, we could in fact build our own computers. Why don't we just use it in the cloud? Um, there are a lot of things we could do that's more cost-effective, but it's in fact more convenient to use it when it's in anthropic and open AI. I would also argue that for a lot of people and for a lot of companies, uh, even if if free if the model is free, it'll still cost you more to operate it yourself. you might as well have somebody else do it for you.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
Open models keep AI continually available, rather than dependent on any one provider's decisions.
They they had to make it available for people and uh it's their job to make the technology harden and safe and secure uh and whatever whatever uh whatever jailbreaks or whatever vulnerabilities there are in the software as soon as they find it they ought to fix it. That's the nature of software. And um uh look look what happened. Uh it was released. Um somehow it was uh uh jailbreed and uh it was able to do things that that u maybe they were trying to guard rail it for not to do. Um but everything was fine.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
It's best for cyber security and so depending on irrespective of how many industries uh open models is foundational to the advance of science and the advancement of computer science today. Uh I really do hope that we keep it open. >> Simple question on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Should American companies be allowed to use Chinese AI models? Absolutely. Absolutely. I there's a there's a misconception that somehow uh there are back doors that is somehow connected to to China in some way. You download the models. You could uh you could fine-tune it. You can uh enhance it.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
The number of manufacturing uh jobs has increased some 50% in the last several years because these computers have to go into these AI data centers which generate the tokens the intelligence and the num because that is in such great demand uh the number of manufacturing jobs has gone up and so when you think about AI across the whole industry jobs are being created everywhere. >> So one more on what blew your hair back. We know that anthropics mythos can break into a bank or can uh break into an intelligence agency. What has surprised you or what's coming that gives you pause?
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
Open weights commoditise the model layer, moving durable value to distribution, data, and the infrastructure underneath.
they're going to go public. These two companies will be the most uh successful IPOs in in human history. How is it possible that two companies that are only a few years old are worth a trillion dollars? And so the you know AI being diffused abundantly free AI being diffused all over industry, all over society. Um so that if someone would like to have an offtheshelf incredibly built service instead of making their own AI instead of hosting their own AI to have that choice I think is going to be fantastic.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
Open weights prevent AI from being controlled by a few actors, because anyone can run them.
A coordinated slowdown is worth pursuing even at the cost of advantage, because uncoordinated speed is the greater risk.
Um I I think that that um regulation uh of the technology uh needs needs to think about the unintended consequences of regulation. Um um we we need to think about think about uh AI not in the con context of some kind of a foot race in a 100 meter dash. Um, the narrative that whoever gets to the 100 meter dash, whoever wins that wins it forever is nonsense. The idea that >> And here you're talking about the US and China. >> That's right. It's complete nonsense. All of those stories being made up is scaring Washington DC. We're >> And do you think it's scaring the White House?
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
Uh we have to recognize that China has some of the largest population of science and math students in the world. They're if they manufacture anything that's incredible. They manufacture math students incredibly. And so so they they uh they manufacture more AI researchers than the rest of the world combined. So winning. >> So the fact that China is going to be extraordinary at this is a foregone conclusion. And the idea that we would hold China back is illconceived and and uh it's not going to happen. Um nor are they going to hold the United States back.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
Well, the world's changing every day and you just got to stay alert. Um, but I have every confidence that Nvidia and the United States are going to continue to thrive. Um, you know, the confidence comes from uh not hope, but confidence comes from the fact that you're surrounded by amazing people. uh the country fundamentally wants to succeed and it creates the conditions for entrepreneurs and innovators uh uh to do great work and we we're surrounded by amazing brilliance.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
Open models damage the business case of closed models by putting downward pressure on prices.
Free AI should be great for chips. Uh free AI should be great for uh data centers. So, I think I think the um uh the market just got it wrong. They got it wrong with Deepseek. As you recall, when Deep Seek came out, our stock price was down some 30%. And I think it's this is exactly the same thing. What this industry needs is great AI and the fact that Kimmy 3 is so extraordinary, QN is so extraordinary, um, uh, GLM so extraordinary, these Neimotron, Nvidia Neotron so extraordinary.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
Safety and innovation trade off against one another: what makes a model safer makes it less capable or less widely available, so pushing on one goal costs ground on the other.
Um I have every confidence that United States will continue to lead and uh so long as as long as we have the support and the encouragement um of governments, we should be able to continue to do so. >> Flip side, should the government ban or restrict Kimmy or other Chinese models? Uh, I hope not. And I really don't think so. The United States, um, the world needs open and closed models. We should use closed models because they're great to use. They work incredibly well. Uh, uh, anthropic and open AI. Uh, these are incredibly great services.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
So open models is enhances cyber security. Open models enhances safety and the reason for that is because we want massively distributed selfdiverse defense. We want to put open models in the hands of cyber security experts all over the world so that they could one defend themselves so that they could look for vulnerability. They could share ideas among communities. If everything just becomes one single model, one single point of attack, one single source of failure, I think the com the world is much much more vulnerable.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
>> Can intervention by the government ever be a good thing? >> Of course uh regulation is a good thing in many different industries and you want to regulate applications. you have to be mindful to regulate technology. The raw technology itself um is dual use. And so we want to make sure that you regulate how it's used. Uh maybe you want to you want to regulate uh uh the service itself. Maybe you'll regulate uh how it's used in medicine, how it's used in transportation. Uh you should regulate how AI is used in autonomous vehicles.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
Open models move the binding scarcity to hardware — compute, chips and the networking between them.
Building national AI capacity on sovereign infrastructure is sound policy for smaller countries, not merely a way to sell deployments.
And now of course the world is large and for many countries and companies they must build their own intelligence. They can't outsource their fundamental intelligence to a third party. And so I think you should you should um uh apply and adopt and rent intelligence from cloud services wherever you can. Um however you can't outsource your own intelligence. You should build your own custom AI. The Palunteer CEO went viral for his interview warning about giving up your alpha, your intellectual property to the Frontier Labs. You're in a unique position.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
And the reason for that is because the the most likely person to upgrade to a great model like anthropic and open AAI is someone who already uses AI and they would like to have it more conveniently. Maybe they like to have more services comes along with with anthropic and open AI. maybe maybe um uh the models are just so much better which I expected to be.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
I advise all of my customers to use open AI and anthropic and use open model closed models and services as much as they can because it's easy. It works incredibly well and I use it. I use perplexity and anthropic and open AI and and um uh you use these services as much as you can. You only build your own AI if you must. And it turns out a lot of companies whether it's financial services or cyber security companies companies like ourselves we must build our own AI. And so Neimotron is built for companies who need to do that. We don't have to be the frontier. We have to be at the frontier.
Jensen Huang: 'AI Doomers Have It Wrong' — Axios Interview Full Transcript · 2026-07-23
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