In an interview with Channel 4 News, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that in the race to succeed in the AI era, “the big winners will be electricians and plumbers.” According to the entrepreneur, practical professions will prevail as companies widely implement AI.
The Channel 4 report aired against the backdrop of US tech companies’ grand promises to invest £31 billion in Britain. Against this backdrop, Huang explained why “hands-on skills” and certified installation and maintenance skills will be increasingly valued. The interview was recorded by economic commentator Helia Ebrahimi.
Juan’s logic easily aligns with his description of today’s data centers: “AI factories” that transform electricity into computational intelligence. The growth of these “factories” requires new substations, cabling, cooling systems, and the installation of robotic systems—all of which require specialized on-site personnel.
This position echoes his previous statements that “human language is becoming the new programming language”: thanks to artificial intelligence, access to computing is becoming more democratized and the barriers to entry for office jobs are lowering. At London Tech Week, he stated that “almost anyone can ‘program’ simply by talking to AI and specifying queries,” a thesis that is the subject of debate and criticism in the industry.
Simply put, it’s simple: the more AI becomes embedded in real products and infrastructure, the more people will be needed to lay the cables, connect the power, deploy the equipment, and maintain it. This means a new, obvious career path is emerging beyond white-collar jobs, through craft skills and engineering certifications, without which no “AI factory” can function.
While some debate whether AI will “kill programming,” Juan’s words are more about a redistribution of value: software is indeed becoming more accessible, but the physical world, with its electricity, plumbing, cooling, and security, hasn’t disappeared and requires increasingly skilled hands.
But the question is another. What jobs won’t be affected by artificial intelligence? Carpenters, plumbers, and electricians will likely outperform programmers and engineers.
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