Human-level artificial intelligence is already here, at least according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. But it’s not exactly what most people would want from the technology.
“We’ve achieved AGI,” Huang said in a podcast interview with computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman, released Monday. AGI, or artificial general intelligence, has been the goal of researchers for decades and is generally considered to refer to AI which surpasses humans across a wide range of intellectual tasks.
It’s a big statement from the head of the world’s largest public company. The debate over whether AI is superior to humans at various assignments is an increasingly critical one, especially as companies attribute mass layoffs to the technology. Nvidia is fueling the debate with investments in the AI ecosystem, aiming to accelerate its deployment across more sectors.
But it’s worth noting the context of Huang’s declaration. Fridman suggested a potential definition of AGI as an AI which is able to start and run a technology company worth more than $1 billion. Huang said it wasn’t “out of the question” that an AI agent based on the popular OpenClaw software could create an app or web service which briefly attracted billions of users. But he didn’t seem confident in the lasting power of an AI CEO.
“You said a billion, and you didn’t say forever,” Huang said.
So ultimately like all claims about AGI, it depends on your definitions. Huang himself offered a different one in 2023, when he said he expected that AI would be able to take “basic intelligence” tests at a level competitive with a typical human within five years.
But there were some more concrete claims in the Fridman interview. Huang said Nvidia could become a $3 trillion revenue company in the “near future”—it generated $215.9 billion in revenue for fiscal 2026—backing the potential for AI to supercharge economic growth with new products and services.
Meanwhile, he took the chance to praise Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing as Nvidia’s most trusted supplier, while being circumspect about Elon Musk’s ambitions to put data centers in space, noting the problem of cooling infrastructure in a vacuum.
Nvidia shares were broadly flat at $175.70 in premarket trading.
Write to Adam Clark at [email protected]
