Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said AI infrastructure like data centres could create as many jobs as the internet did in India.
Speaking at the 3DExperience World event in Houston, he said data centres can drive large-scale employment.
Jobs would span construction, supply chains and other supporting segments, he told Outlook Business.
Days after the Indian government announced a 20-year tax holiday for data centres, a move expected to attract investments of $200 billion, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Outlook Business that AI infrastructure such as data centres can replicate the scale of jobs the internet created when it entered the Indian market.
Addressing a press conference at the 3DExperience World event in Houston, Huang said that data centres could generate significant employment across construction, supply chains and other segments.
3 February 2026
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In Budget 2026, the government proposed a tax holiday until 2047 for foreign companies providing cloud services to global customers using data centres located in India.
“The actual building of the data center is maybe 5,000 people, 10,000 people. They are electricians, plumbers, and construction workers. But don't forget, the derivative workforce, the labor that contributes to ultimately delivering that data center, is quite gigantic,” said Huang.
“Think about the entire supply chain, pipes, concrete, design, architecture, project management, and then, once the data center is operational, the ongoing operations and the startup companies that are built on top of it,” he told us.
This, Huang said, shows the importance of evaluation infrastructure projects through the lens of both direct and indirect employment opportunities. “So, you have to think about the upstream as well as downstream workforce, and the jobs that are created as a result of one single data centre”.
“Look at the internet in India, the number of jobs it has created, both upstream and downstream, is extraordinary. Artificial intelligence will replicate this job impact in India,” Huang added.
The Nvidia CEO argued that AI is becoming fundamental to every industry, while calling it the beginning of “new industrialisation”. “It will be infrastructure, just like water, electricity, and the internet. Every industry needs it, every country will be powered by it, and every society will rely on it”.
His comments come at a time when India is seeing massive investments in data centres and AI-driven services, even as the industry grapples with fears that automation can displace large sections of the workforce.
Earlier this week, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the Finance Minister’s proposal for a tax holiday until 2047 for foreign companies providing global cloud services through India-based data centres could attract up to $200 billion in investment and bolster the country’s AI ecosystem.
India is also eyeing a leading role in global AI conversations, with New Delhi all set to host the India AI Impact Summit, the first-ever in the Global South.
The mega conference scheduled from February 16-20, 2026, at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, will mark the biggest congregation on AI in the world till date, bringing together 15 global leaders and Heads of State/Government, over 40 Ministers, 100s of leading CEOs and CXOs, and eminent academics from all over the world.
Last year, big tech companies Microsoft and Google grabbed headlines as they collectively pledged billions of dollars in fresh capital to build out gigawatt-scale data centres and sovereign AI infrastructure in India.
