NVIDIA INVEST $5OO BILLION IN AMERICAN AI – NOT SO FAST

Written by Michael Thervil

Photo by Annabelle Chih

With Nvidia investing $500 billion in American Artificial Intelligence infrastructure for the construction of AI based supercomputers it sounds like a really good thing. Many Americans think that it would be great for the economy, great for high paying skilled jobs, and more importantly it would also be great optics on the world stage for America to demonstrate its ability to manufacture cutting-edge high-end AI based supercomputers. It seems like every time there is a race like this that starts up, America tends to always be on the losing end of the stick. Yes, there are some great things that America does when it enters these “races” against rival countries and America may even dominate these races for a time period, but it nearly always loses when other nations such as China catch up.

With Nvidia ready to invest $500 billion in AI sector in partnership with the Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company simply known as “TMSC” over the next 4 years and Foxconn (Houston) which is the world's largest manufacturer and assembler of electronics, President Trump stated that he was willing to “expedite all necessary permits” so they could get started on this task. The states of choice for Nvidia were Texas (Houston and Dallas) and Arizona (Phoenix). The question that many people are asking is why now? Is it because of the threat of tariffs or is it something else? The answer lies in the fact that it’s a combination of both and a little more.

Although Nvidia does have location in America, one of the reason why Nvidia was coerced to invest to invest $500 billion in building manufacturing plants in America was because a significant number of its products such as servers, server components, GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), and data centers would still be subjected to trump tariffs which would may have cost more than it would be if Nvidia simply invested in building manufacturing plants in America, thus avoiding tariffs which would’ve been 32%. On top of that Nvidia has gotten its fair share of American government subsidies to the tune of roughly $30 billion. 

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia made the following recent statement:

“Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resiliency.”

The question that’s being asked is how and in what capacity is this project going to strengthen American supply chains and boost American resiliency? This is followed by another question of who exactly is asking/demanding super computers other than governmental agencies and big box retailers such as Amazon? Currently, the average person who uses AI really doesn’t use it for anything other than for cheating on college papers, writing simple resumes, social media, and the creation of memes and deep fakes. Another question that's being asked is what will the wages be for the people who are going to work in Nvidia’s newly minted manufacturing plants in America. 

If you noticed, Nvidia decided to build their plants in the parts of America where the education level, cost of living, taxes, and even more importantly the wages paid to employees are typically lower than in other states. According to indeed.com: 

“The average hourly salary for an assembler is $16.15 in Houston, TX, and $19.53 in Phoenix, AZ. In Phoenix, the salary range for an assembler can vary from $14.18 to $26.89 per hour. In Houston, the range for an assembler is $14.50 to $18 an hour.”

It’s a strategic move for Nvidia but not that far away from average workers being ass fucked as the findings from Indeed.com supports our position in our recently published article entitled: “WHY MANUFACTURING IS NOT COMING BACK TO AMERICA”. We stated the following:

“For manufacturing to come back to America, Americans would have to work for exponentially less. The reason for this is because instead of people working for the supposed average wage in 2025 of $61,984 ($32.38 per hour), they would have to work for $10-$12 above the minimum wage of $7.25 in order to make it not only attractive for manufacturers to come back for America but they would have to work for $10-$12 in order for manufacturing to be profitable in America.”

While America calls China out for “Over Capacity”, Social Scientists are calling America out for worker exploitation.