Nvidia chief calls AI ‘the greatest equalizer’ – but warns Europe risks falling behind

PARIS (AP) - Will artificial intelligence save humanity - or destroy it? Lift up the world's poorest - or tighten the grip of a tech elite?

Jensen Huang, the global chip tycoon, offered his opinion on Wednesday: neither dystopia nor domination. AI, he said, is a tool for liberation.

Wearing his signature biker jacket and mobbed by fans for selfies, the Nvidia CEO cut the figure of a tech rockstar as he took the stage at VivaTech in Paris.

"AI is the greatest equalizer of people the world has ever created," Huang said, kicking off one of Europe's biggest technology industry fairs.

But beyond the sheeny optics, Nvidia used the Paris summit to unveil a wave of infrastructure announcements across Europe, signaling a dramatic expansion of the AI chipmaker's physical and strategic footprint on the continent.

In France, the company is deploying 18,000 of its new Blackwell chips with startup Mistral AI. In Germany, it's building an industrial AI cloud to support manufacturers. Similar rollouts are underway in Italy, Spain, Finland and the U.K., including a new AI lab in Britain.

Other announcements include a partnership with AI startup Perplexity to bring sovereign AI models to European publishers and telecoms, a new cloud platform with Mistral AI, and work with BMW and Mercedes-Benz to train AI-powered robots for use in auto plants.

The announcements reflect how central AI infrastructure has become to global strategy, and how Nvidia - the world's most valuable chipmaker - is positioning itself as the engine behind it.

At the center of the debate is Huang's concept of the AI factory: not a plant that makes goods, but a vast data center that creates intelligence. These facilities train language models, simulate new drugs, detect cancer in scans, and more.

Asked if such systems risk creating a "technological priesthood" - hoarding computing power and stymying the bottom-up innovation that fueled the tech industry for the past 50 years - Huang pushed back.

"Through the velocity of our innovation, we democratize," he told The Associated Press. "We lower the cost of access to technology."

As Huang put it, these factories "reason," "plan," and "spend a lot of time talking to" themselves, powering everything from ChatGPT to autonomous vehicles and diagnostics.

But some critics warn that without guardrails, such all-seeing, self-reinforcing systems could go the way of Skynet in " The Terminator " movie - vast intelligence engines that outpace human control.

"Just as electricity powered the last industrial revolution, AI will power the next one," he said. "Every country now needs a national intelligence infrastructure."

He added: "AI factories are now part of a country's infrastructure. That's why you see me running around the world talking to heads of state - they all want AI to be part of their infrastructure. They want AI to be a growth manufacturing industry for them."

Europe, long praised for its leadership on digital rights, now finds itself at a crossroads. As Brussels pushes forward with world-first AI regulations, some warn that over-caution could cost the bloc its place in the global race. With the U.S. and China surging ahead and most major AI firms based elsewhere, the risk isn't just falling behind - it's becoming irrelevant.

Huang has a different vision: sovereign AI. Not isolation, but autonomy - building national AI systems aligned with local values, independent of foreign tech giants.

"The data belongs to you," Huang said. "It belongs to your people, your country… your culture, your history, your common sense."

But fears over AI misuse remain potent - from surveillance and deepfake propaganda to job losses and algorithmic discrimination. Huang doesn't deny the risks. But he insists the technology can be kept in check - by itself.

"In the future, the AI that is doing the task is going to be surrounded by 70 or 80 other AIs that are supervising it, observing it, guarding it, ensuring that it doesn't go off the rails."

The VivaTech event was part of Huang's broader European tour. He had already appeared at London Tech Week and is scheduled to visit Germany. In Paris, he joined French President Emmanuel Macron and Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch to reinforce his message that AI is now a national priority.