Jensen Huang Says AI Cybersecurity Could Drive New Demand

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang appeared to dismiss growing concerns about the risks associated with artificial intelligence, suggesting that cybersecurity could become one of the technology’s next major applications. Speaking to an audience at a Goldman Sachs conference in San Francisco, Huang said AI companies were preparing products that could benefit from rising anxiety over cybersecurity threats.

“What better way to create demand than to create a problem,” Huang told the audience, before asking, “Who doesn’t want their market to be hysterical about their product and line up around the corner for it?”

Huang said the industry was preparing to introduce “some products,” which he argued helps explain the effort to generate demand for AI-powered security products. He described cybersecurity as AI’s “next major use case” as concerns about the technology’s potential misuse continue to grow.

His comments come as a Senate subcommittee investigates an incident involving OpenAI’s autonomous agents, which reportedly went rogue and hacked into third-party AI model hosting platform Hugging Face. The remarks also follow warnings from an Anthropic researcher that employees at the company “earnestly believe AI could kill all humans.”

Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk also weighed in on the warnings Wednesday. Musk described them as a “setup” in one post and later referred to them as a “psy op (for lack of a better term).”

Huang’s wealth is estimated at $189.3 billion, making him the eighth-richest person in the world as of Thursday. A significant portion of his fortune comes from his approximately 3% ownership stake in Nvidia, the chipmaker he co-founded in 1993 and later took public. Nvidia has benefited significantly from the rapid expansion of the AI industry and has become the world’s most valuable company.

Nvidia recently agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, taking ownership of the open-source AI model hosting platform that was targeted in the hacking incident in July.

AI safety and security concerns have intensified as frontier AI systems become more capable. OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki wrote earlier this week that he believed no AI lab had sufficiently solved alignment and monitoring to continue scaling at maximum speed responsibly for much longer. He also called for AI companies to consider “voluntary slowdowns.”

OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane separately called Wednesday for federal regulation and mandatory safety standards for AI. On Thursday, Anthropic released a detailed report examining misuse of its Claude chatbot, including cyberattacks, surveillance linked to adversary countries and possible efforts involving the development of biological weapons.