Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said that artificial intelligence infrastructure, particularly data centres, has the potential to recreate the scale of job creation that the internet once generated when it entered India said.
His remarks come shortly after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in Budget 2026 that foreign companies using data centres based in India will be eligible for a tax holiday until 2047.
Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of the 3DExperience World event in Houston, Huang highlighted the employment potential of large-scale data centre projects, noting that their impact extends far beyond direct construction jobs.
“The actual building of the data centre is maybe 5,000 people, 10,000 people. They are electricians, plumbers, and construction workers. But don't forget, the derivative workforce, the labour that contributes to ultimately delivering that data centre, is quite gigantic,” Huang said while responding to a question from Outlook Business.
He emphasised that employment is generated across a wide ecosystem, from materials and design to operations and innovation. “Think about the entire supply chain, pipes, concrete, design, architecture, project management, and then, once the data centre is operational, the ongoing operations and the startup companies that are built on top of it,” he added.
According to Huang, assessing infrastructure projects solely through direct employment figures misses the larger picture. “So think about the upstream as well as the downstream labour, workforce, and jobs that are created as a result of one single data centre that gets created,” he said.
Drawing a parallel with India’s digital transformation over the past two decades, Huang said AI could have a similar ripple effect on employment. “Look at the internet of India. The amount of jobs that has created upstream as well as downstream as a result of the internet, incredible. Same thing. Artificial intelligence can do exactly the same thing.”
Echoing this view, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said data centres could become a strategic strength for the country. “Data centres will be a major strength for India through which we can provide new services to the world,” he told reporters.
India has already attracted significant interest from global technology firms. Google announced in October that it would invest $15 billion in an AI data centre project in Andhra Pradesh, while Microsoft and Amazon have committed billions of dollars to expanding their data centre footprint in the country.
Huang also described AI as foundational to the next phase of economic transformation, calling it the start of a new wave of 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,” he said.
His comments come amid growing debate over whether automation could displace jobs, even as India positions itself as a global hub for AI infrastructure and services. The government estimates that the extended tax incentives for data centres could attract investments worth up to $200 billion and significantly strengthen India’s AI ecosystem.
India is also preparing to play a larger role in shaping global AI discourse. New Delhi is set to host the India AI Impact Summit from February 16–20, 2026, at Bharat Mandapam, bringing together global leaders, ministers, technology executives and academics from around the world.
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