Nvidia Plans Half-Trillion Dollars to Build US Artificial Intelligence

WASHINGTON — Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang announced this week that his company plans to invest a half-trillion dollars in U.S. infrastructure needed to manufacture semiconductors and to build the supercomputers that enable artificial intelligence.

“Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resiliency,” Huang said this week when he announced the investment.

He said the project would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the coming decades.

The plans call for Nvidia to manufacture its Blackwell artificial intelligence chips at a Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plant in Phoenix, Arizona. The supercomputer servers and other components would be built in Texas under contract with electronics companies Foxconn and Wistron.

Production of the first supercomputer components is expected in just over a year. Manufacturing of the Blackwell chips has already started.

Nvidia is the world’s largest developer of graphics processing units, or GPUs, which are specialized electronic circuits designed for digital image processing. Its revenue for fiscal 2025 is projected at $130.57 billion.

Huang was a founder of Nvidia 32 years ago in Santa Clara, California. It started as a video game company.

Most of the semiconductor chips Nvidia uses now are made in Taiwan.

“The engines of the world’s AI infrastructure are being built in the United States for the first time,” Huang said in a blog post.

In addition to the employment and other economic benefits, the U.S. government is concerned that sophisticated artificial intelligence chips are becoming a cornerstone of military advantages China is trying to gain over the United States. Keeping production in the United States would give greater control over the products and designs built around artificial intelligence.

The chips are key components of technologies such as driverless cars, mobile phones and missile systems.

“Onshoring these industries is good for the American worker, good for the American economy, and good for American national security,” a White House statement said.

President Donald Trump said this week that he plans additional incentives for a domestic semiconductor industry. He plans to announce new tariffs on foreign-made semiconductors “in the not distant future,” he said.

Huang’s optimism for the U.S. artificial intelligence industry was tempered by a warning about the job force needed to keep it going.

Huang is urging the U.S. government to train more workers for professions in artificial intelligence or risk falling behind.

The United States has been a leader in artificial intelligence but Huang said this week that China is closing the gap quickly. He said about half the world’s artificial intelligence researchers are Chinese.

“China is right behind us,” Huang said at a tech conference in Washington, D.C. “We are very close. Remember this is a long-term, infinite race.”

He mentioned Chinese tech company Huawei as Nvidia’s main international competitor.

“To lead, the U.S. must embrace the technology, invest in re-skilling, and equip every worker to build with it,” Huang said.

He said the competition over artificial intelligence dominance is similar to other watershed industry innovations in history. He cautioned that too much concern over displacing workers whose jobs are outmoded by artificial intelligence could leave the United States behind other countries.

“This industry is going to enable a whole bunch of other industries,” Huang said at a separate White House ceremony on Wednesday.

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