Jensen Huang on AI's 'Five-Layer Cake' at Davos

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang described artificial intelligence as a five-layer cake at a mainstage session during the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Huang spoke with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. He outlined the layers as energy, chips and computing infrastructure, cloud data centers, AI models and the application layer. Huang said every layer of the stack must be built and operated, which is driving job creation across energy, construction, advanced manufacturing, cloud operations and application development. The application layer will deliver the largest economic benefits as AI integrates into sectors such as financial services, healthcare and manufacturing, Huang said. Huang noted that 2025 was one of the largest years for venture capital funding on record, with most of the capital directed to AI-native companies in healthcare, robotics, manufacturing and financial services. He said the buildout is creating demand for skilled labor including plumbers, electricians, construction workers, steelworkers and network technicians. Huang said AI is increasing productivity and hiring in fields such as radiology and nursing rather than eliminating positions. He noted a U.S. shortage of roughly 5 million nurses and cited work by companies such as Abridge to automate charting and documentation. Huang framed AI as essential national infrastructure that every country should develop with its own language and cultural data. He said AI is the easiest software to use in history and has reached nearly a billion people in two to three years. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said the discussion indicated the world is far from an AI bubble. Huang agreed that large investments are required and said more than 100 billion dollars in global venture capital was deployed in 2025, most of it into AI-native startups building the application layer.