Elon Musk and Jensen Huang discuss: AI will make you busier, humanoid robots will become the largest industry in history

On November 20th, local time, at the main venue of the US-Saudi Investment Forum, Musk and Jensen Huang made a rare joint appearance to discuss hot topics such as AI and space computing power. During the event, both parties announced a significant AI infrastructure investment: Musk's xAI will collaborate with NVIDIA and the Saudi national AI company Humane to build a 500-megawatt AI data center in the desert.

The key points from the discussion are summarized as follows:

On Innovation: The core of my business is not disruption, but creation. For example, SpaceX's reusable rockets did not exist before.

On Humanoid Robots: There are currently no truly practical products, but Tesla will produce the first one. Humanoid robots will become the largest industry or product in history, larger than smartphones or anything else, because everyone will want one, or even multiple.

On AI Factories: The computing model has shifted from "retrieval-based" to "generative," and since it is generative and each result is different, AI factories around the world are needed to generate content in real-time.

On Wealth Disparity: AI and humanoid robots will actually eliminate poverty. This is the only way to make everyone wealthy.

On Work: AI will not make you unemployed; instead, it will make you busier. After productivity increases, most companies are not easier, but have more backlog. There are too many things to do, making it busier instead.

Future work will be optional. It will be like a hobby; if you want to work, you can work.

On Money: If you go far enough, assuming AI and robotics continue to improve, then at some point in the future, money will no longer matter.

On Space: AI in space is inevitable. Within five years, the lowest cost way to perform AI computations will be using solar-powered AI satellites.

On the AI Bubble: What we are seeing is not a bubble, but a fundamental shift from general computing to accelerated computing. Recommendation systems are the engine of today's internet, and generative AI is the third huge opportunity on top of that.

The full transcript of the discussion is as follows:

Humanoid Robots Will Become the Largest Industry or Product in History

Host:

Thank you very much, sir. It’s also a pleasure to see you this morning. Let’s give a warm welcome to the two outstanding visionaries, Tesla CEO, SpaceX founder, and X AI founder Elon Musk, and NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang.

Please take your seats. We should give a more enthusiastic round of applause for one of the greatest leaders in history. That said, the topic we are discussing today involves a market capitalization scale that has reached 7 to 8 trillion dollars (I can’t even count it), but we are gathered here to celebrate a historic moment — that is, the scene from last night's dinner Thank you all for being here with the support of His Excellency the President and His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed. Last night, we were fortunate to hear an important message: this is the greatest alliance between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States. In the past, you helped us build an energy-based economy, powering the industrial age; and now, we are rapidly stepping into the intelligent era, providing support for fields such as artificial intelligence factories, robotics, and autonomous flying vehicles. Speaking of which, Elon, if you don’t mind, let’s start with you, and Jensen can add his comments at any time.

You have an immense obsession with certain things. We all admire "first-order thinking"—which Jensen sometimes refers to as "first-order scaling"—it is this kind of thinking that has allowed you to reduce battery costs from $1,000 per kilowatt-hour to below $100. Now, you are applying the same cost optimization in the robotics field with servo rotors and motors for actuators. So I would like to hear how you consistently disrupt every industry with this kind of thinking.

Elon Musk:

Actually, it’s mostly not about "disruption," but rather "creation." For example, SpaceX's reusable rockets; before that, there were no reusable rockets at all, but to fundamentally change space travel, the key lies in reusability.

If every launch requires discarding the rocket, the cost of space exploration would be outrageous. Let’s talk about electric vehicles; when we first started making electric cars, there were no electric cars available on the market (as far as I know). So Tesla's goal was to create electric cars that are both attractive and affordable.

As for humanoid robots, there are currently no truly practical products, only some gimmicks. But I believe Tesla will create the first truly useful humanoid robot, and this will be a huge revolution.

I believe everyone will want one—after all, who wouldn’t want their own personal C-3PO or R2-D2? (Yes, I still remember those two characters from "Star Wars"). In the future, there will be a large number of robots in the industrial sector providing products and services. That’s why I say humanoid robots will become the largest industry or product in history, larger than smartphones or anything else, because everyone will want one, or even multiple.

And the demand in the industrial sector will also be enormous.

Jensen Huang:

I just want an "R2-D2 with a C-3PO shell."

Elon Musk:

Well said! In fact, humanoid robots will be more powerful than R2-D2 and C-3PO combined, even ten times stronger.

People often talk about eliminating poverty and similar topics. How long has this topic been discussed? There have been many discussions, and many NGOs have tried, but in reality, there has been no success; the evidence is clear.

But artificial intelligence and humanoid robots will truly eliminate poverty—and Tesla will not be the only company producing humanoid robots. I believe Tesla will pioneer this field, but then more companies will join in. The only way to make everyone wealthy is fundamentally through artificial intelligence and robotics.

Why We Need AI Factories

Host:

When talking about robots, we cannot avoid mentioning AI factories.

Yesterday was a historic day for both countries as we celebrated the signing of the US-Saudi AI strategic partnership, witnessed by His Excellency the President and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince — we committed to investing capital, energy, and land to energize the US AI ecosystem, building reasoning nodes and training nodes, and becoming the country with the most extensive application of AI globally. Jensen Huang, what do you think the next steps for AI factories are?

Jensen Huang:

Saudi Arabia is transforming its refineries into AI factories, and this story is very beautiful. I have always said that AI is an infrastructure, and the reason is simple: from a technological perspective, AI is disrupting every industry, and the application of digital intelligence spans various fields. In the future, every company, every industry, and every country will use it. In this sense, it is foundational and thus part of the infrastructure.

From the perspective of computer science, the innovation of AI lies in the fact that: past computing was mainly "retrieval-based computing" — someone inputs a piece of text, creates a painting, or designs four versions of a digital ad; these were all pre-made, and the system only needed to retrieve the appropriate version for you.

Hadoop and many past frameworks and operating systems were designed to help you retrieve relevant information. But now, software will generate content in real-time — based on context, scenarios, user identity, the questions you ask, and prompts, it will generate unique content for you each time.

For example, when using Groq, each result is different, depending on your prompts and specific scenarios. So the computing model has shifted from "retrieval-based" to "generative," and since it is generative and each result is different, we need AI factories around the world to generate content in real-time — this is why we need AI factories.

This computing method is unprecedented, but the benefit is that all content is not pre-set but is contextually relevant and intelligent.

Work Will Become "Optional"

Host:

So with AI factories and robotics, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince also mentioned his vision last night: to enhance the workforce by deploying tens of millions of robots, injecting the next wave of productivity and progress. But this also raises concerns about future employment. Elon Musk and Jensen Huang, what are your thoughts?

Elon Musk:

Of course, in the long run (I don't know if long run means 10 years or 20 years, but for me, that's long run), my prediction is: work will become "optional."

Host:

That's interesting.

Elon Musk:

Yes, it's like sports or video games. If you want to work, go ahead — just like you can go to the store to buy vegetables or grow them in your backyard.

Growing vegetables in the backyard is obviously more troublesome, but some people will still do it because they enjoy gardening. That's how future work will be — it will be optional. And before we reach that state, we have a lot of work to do Elon Musk:

I always recommend that people read Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series to get a sense of a potentially achievable positive future with artificial intelligence.

Interestingly, in those books, currency no longer exists. I guess if AI and robotics continue to advance (which seems very likely), at some point in the future, currency will become irrelevant. Of course, basic physical resources like electricity and materials will still be constraints, but I believe currency will ultimately lose its significance.

Host:

Jensen Huang, what are your thoughts?

AI Will Make You Busier

Jensen Huang:

Since we are talking about currency...

I think we can look at it from different time dimensions.

First of all, everyone's way of working will change — this is certain. Students' learning methods and people's working methods will be different because many things we currently find trivial, laborious, or difficult will become very simple in the future, so our productivity will increase significantly.

What I mean is that for most people or companies, if life becomes more efficient and things that were once difficult become simple, then you will have more time to pursue more ideas.

I guess Elon will become busier because of AI, and so will I. The reason is that we both have many ideas, and there are many backlog projects in the company that we want to push forward.

If productivity increases, we can achieve these goals faster. So in the short term, all evidence suggests that we will become more efficient, but at the same time, we will also be busier because we have too many things we want to do.

Jensen Huang:

I can give an example: I just spoke with Elon, and radiology has basically been driven by AI now.

Many excellent companies are doing this, and surprisingly, it was previously predicted that "radiologists would be among the first to lose their jobs," but the reality is quite the opposite — the number of radiologists being hired has actually increased.

The reason is simple: the core goal of radiologists is not "to study images," but "to diagnose diseases." Now that image analysis has become very efficient, they can analyze more images, more modalities, and spend more time communicating with patients, thus being able to take on more patients.

Today, the volume of radiological diagnoses worldwide is increasing, and disease diagnosis is also more accurate. This is the short-term result of AI in terms of productivity. As for what will happen in the long term — for example, when currency becomes irrelevant, remember to let me know in advance.

Elon Musk:

You will notice it in advance, just like...

Jensen Huang:

Just like we often send messages, just send a text when that time comes. That's right, we often communicate via text.

Host:

I completely agree with both of your points. Because throughout every technological wave, every general-purpose technology has ultimately brought net positive benefits to the world and humanity. I also want to share two stories.

Jensen Huang:

I think that’s exactly the reason — innovators like Elon have so many great ideas Host:

You too. Yes.

Jensen Huang:

Thank you.

A 500 MW AI Data Center to Be Built in the Desert

Host:

I want to share the stories of two Saudi innovators whose achievements are inseparable from NVIDIA's strong support.

The first is Professor Ouyaji, the first Saudi-American to win a Nobel Prize for his achievements in creating a new field of chemistry. He utilized NVIDIA's AI accelerators and models like Rock to pioneer new chemistry in the field of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) — creating a "sponge" with a pore size of just 0.33 nanometers that can capture water and carbon dioxide from the air through the combination of positively charged metal ions and organic linkers.

The second story also involves AI accelerated by NVIDIA and models like Rock: nanorobots (sized 500 nanometers × 1000 nanometers) that can treat sickle cell anemia using CRISPR gene editing technology.

Both projects originated from research conducted 20 years ago, but AI has accelerated the transformation of results, leading us into new value domains. I believe that in terms of labor and productivity, humanity can always pivot to new value domains with the waves of technology. But today we have some major announcements to make, Elon, let's start with your collaboration with X AI.

Elon Musk:

We are excited to announce that we will be collaborating with Saudi Arabia to build a 500 MW (yes, 500 MW) project... Wait, if it's 500 GW, that would cost $8 trillion.

So, X AI and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will collaborate to build a...

Host:

A 500 MW project, starting with 50 MW in the first phase, and it will be in collaboration with NVIDIA. Congratulations to the Humane team and the Target team, you did an excellent job. Jensen, I think you have some important news to announce this week as well?

Jensen Huang:

Yes.

Jensen Huang:

We have a lot of news to announce. Our collaboration with Humane is progressing very well — first, we helped this company get started, and now they have a heavyweight client: Elon Musk.

It's hard to imagine a startup with almost zero revenue is about to build a 500 MW data center for Musk; the scale is enormous, and this company has suddenly established itself. Additionally, we are also collaborating with Amazon Web Services (AWS), as you know...

Host:

Congratulations to the Humane team on their collaboration with AWS: starting with 100 MW in the first phase, aiming for 1 GW, and the scale is continuously expanding.

Jensen Huang:

So AWS will also collaborate with Humane, and we are leveraging NVIDIA's Omniverse Digital Twins technology — AI is not just about agents and chatbots; cognitive AI is crucial to understanding the world, but the applications of AI span all fields: chemistry, proteins, genes, physics, fluid dynamics, particles, and of course, robotics and drive systems We have built the Omniverse platform, where robots can learn how to become excellent robots in this physics-based environment. We are collaborating with Humane to apply Omniverse technology in various scenarios such as digital factories, robots, and warehouses. This is another important partnership.

We are also building a supercomputer in Saudi Arabia to simulate quantum computers and use our computers for control and error correction—quantum error correction requires massive computational power. So we have also done a lot of outstanding work in this area. The collaboration with Humane is truly amazing; they have made leapfrog progress right from the start.

Space Artificial Intelligence is Inevitable

Host:

This is the practical action of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia—yesterday, His Excellency the President and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince announced the US-Saudi Artificial Intelligence Strategic Framework and Partnership, and today we are launching large-scale cooperation with Musk and Jensen Huang. Thank you for bringing these opportunities. I am now informed that there are only two questions left. Last night at the dinner, many people hinted at these two questions (as the agenda seems to have leaked).

The first question is for Musk, and the second heavyweight question is for Jensen Huang, so get ready. The question is: Is artificial intelligence feasible in space?

Musk:

Feasible. If human civilization can continue to develop (which is likely), then space artificial intelligence is inevitable.

Of course, I must first clarify: we cannot take the survival of civilization for granted; we need to ensure that civilization remains on an upward trend.

Anyone who studies history knows that the development of civilization is not always upward; in fact, civilizations have life cycles. I hope we are currently in a strong upward phase—I believe we are, but we cannot be complacent.

To understand space artificial intelligence, we can think from the perspective of the Kardashev Scale: If human civilization wants to utilize even one-millionth of the solar energy, it must deploy solar-powered artificial intelligence satellites in deep space.

When you think from the perspective of "how much solar energy can civilization convert into useful work," you will find that space is the key—Earth receives only about one in two billion of the total solar radiation. So if we want to obtain a million times more energy than the total electricity generation on Earth, we must go into space. Having a space company (referring to SpaceX) is very helpful in this regard.

Jensen Huang:

Cooling chips in space is also easier.

Musk:

That's right. There is no water in space, so we must use a waterless cooling method—essentially radiation cooling. My estimate is that long before the energy potential on Earth is exhausted (possibly in less than five years), the cost-effectiveness of artificial intelligence computing in space will far exceed that on the ground. In other words, within at most five years, the cheapest way to compute artificial intelligence will be solar-powered space satellites. Jensen Huang:

Look at the supercomputer we built together: each rack weighs about 2 tons, of which 1.95 tons may be equipment used for cooling. Imagine what it would be like if these supercomputers (like the GB300 rack) were made into mini devices.

Elon Musk:

And generating power has become a challenge. If you want to scale up artificial intelligence computing, whether it's power generation or cooling, you'll find that the advantages of space are very obvious.

For example, if you want to achieve 200 to 300 gigawatts of artificial intelligence computing power annually, it's almost impossible on Earth— the average electricity consumption in the U.S. is about 460 gigawatts per year, and 300 gigawatts is equivalent to two-thirds of the annual electricity generation in the U.S., making it impossible to build that many power plants.

If you want to reach 1 terawatt of computing power annually, that's even more impossible; it must be achieved in space. In space, solar energy is continuous, and batteries are not even needed (because it's always daytime in space), solar panels would also be cheaper (no need for glass or frames), and cooling can be done simply through radiation.

Jensen Huang:

That's where the dream lies, yes, that's our dream.

What we see is not a bubble, but a fundamental shift from general computing to accelerated computing

Host:

Jensen Huang, everyone asked me to ask you this question last night— I know you will release your financial report today, so I will ask it delicately: Are we going to see an artificial intelligence bubble?

Jensen Huang:

Is this the last question?

Jensen Huang:

Okay, let me share what we see. I think to understand what is happening globally, we need to return to the fundamental principles of computer science and computing. Currently, three key trends are occurring:

First, we all know that Moore's Law has reached its end. The gap between computing demand and the computing power that general computing can provide is widening, so the world has long begun to shift towards accelerated computing—we have been driving this change for over 20 years.

Let me give you a statistic: six years ago at the supercomputing conference, 90% of the global Top500 supercomputers used CPUs; this year, that percentage is less than 15% (from 90% down to 10%). Meanwhile, the share of accelerated computing has risen from 10% to 90%. This marks a turning point in the high-performance computing field from general computing to accelerated computing.

Second, one of the most data-intensive and computationally demanding tasks in the cloud space is data processing—every year, raw data processing alone consumes hundreds of billions of dollars in computing resources, which has nothing to do with artificial intelligence; it's just SQL processing, data frame analysis (like everyone's name, address, gender, age, income, etc.).

Today's world (whether in banking, credit card industry, e-commerce, or advertising recommendations) relies on these data frames to operate, and the cost of processing these data frames is extremely high. This is the first impact brought about by the end of Moore's Law Third, the past 15 years have been called the "era of recommendation systems" — how to recommend information to users in social dynamics, how to recommend advertisements, books, or movies? The scale of the internet is so vast that without recommendation systems, our phones would be unable to find the information we need. Recommendation systems are the core engine of today's internet, but they are transitioning from a traditional CPU-based model to a GPU-based generative artificial intelligence model.

If we only look at these two application scenarios, we will find that many internet companies are deploying a large number of GPU computers, which lays the foundation for the third opportunity — Agentic AI (such as Groq, OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, etc.).

But let’s not forget that beneath the surface of artificial intelligence that everyone sees today, there is a comprehensive transformation from general computing to accelerated computing. Considering this, you will conclude that the resources supporting this revolutionary Agentic AI are not only far less than you might think, but all resources are reasonable and necessary.

Host:

I just received a notification from the team that my superior and your superiors (Your Excellency the President and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince) are about to speak, so our conversation time is up. But in summary, everyone present is very fond of Elon Musk and Jensen Huang. This US-Saudi alliance has shifted from the energy sector to the digital realm and now to the intelligent era, driven by pioneers like Musk and Huang, aiming to serve humanity, create a new economy, job opportunities, and build a better future for mankind — all of which cannot be separated from the support of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States. Thank you for your lifelong partnership and friendship. Thank you, everyone