Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said tech leaders need to be careful not to scare people about artificial intelligence, in response to a question about how Anthropic PBC could have better handled messy contract negotiations with the Pentagon.
“The desire to warn people about the capability of the technology is really terrific,” Huang said during a panel for the company's technology conference. “Warning is good, scaring is less good, because this technology is too important to us.”
Underpinning that advice is Huang's belief that the greatest US national security risk with AI is that Americans are so angry, fearful or paranoid that the country adopts the technology slower than its rivals. Anthropic, a major Nvidia customer and the maker of the Claude chatbot, remains entrenched in a conflict with the Trump administration over restrictions the company wanted on military use of its AI tools.
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splintered last month over CEO Dario Amodei's insistence on contract terms barring its products from being used for domestic surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons. In response, the Trump administration declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk and moved to drop it from work across the government, steps that the company is now challenging in court.
Even with the dispute, Huang remains optimistic about Anthropic's financial prospects. During the panel, which became an episode of the technology-focused All-In podcast, Huang said he believes Anthropic could surpass $1 trillion in revenue by 2030. He added that he thought Amodei has been conservative with his projections.
Spokespeople for Anthropic didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
When asked specifically about what he would have done if he were in the boardroom with Anthropic, Huang first expressed his admiration for the company, including its focus on safety and security, and then said that the industry must be careful about stoking unnecessary fear over AI tools.
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“It is not a biological being. It is not alien. It is not conscious. It is computer software,” Huang said. “To say things that are quite extreme, quite catastrophic, that there's no evidence of it happening, could be more damaging than people think.”
Huang also waded into the topic of Taiwan, a sensitive issue in relations between Washington and Beijing. He urged the US not to provoke the Chinese government, which claims the self-governed island as part of its territory, a view that Taiwan rejects.
“Let's demonstrate restraint,” said Huang, a US citizen who was born in Taiwan. “Let's not push.”
When asked about the strategic risks of concentrating advanced chip production in Taiwan, Huang said the AI manufacturing supply chain should be diversified, citing South Korea and Japan, along with locations in the US.
“We have to make sure we reindustrialize the US as fast as we can,” he said.
Huang said that Taiwanese expertise, on display with the construction of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. factories in Arizona, “deserves our friendship, our support.” TSMC is the biggest maker of Nvidia-designed chips.
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