The Pulse
Nvidia’s Huang rejects calls to slow frontier AI
Jensen Huang told President Donald Trump that Nvidia would not support an AI slowdown during a live phone call at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles.
AI.info Team ·
President Donald Trump called Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during a live appearance at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles on Monday, and Huang put him on speaker for the audience. Their exchange produced a blunt rejection of calls from several technology leaders to slow the development of advanced artificial intelligence.
“You’re right. We’re not going to let that happen, sir,” Huang told Trump after the president argued that a slowdown would serve political opponents or China. The crowd applauded, according to TechCrunch, which reported from the event.
Huang turns a phone call into a policy statement
Huang was appearing with the venture capitalists behind the All-In podcast, including Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Friedberg and David Sacks, when Trump called. Huang told the president, “I’m onstage with the besties,” then worked with stagehands to make the conversation audible to the room.
Trump said people urging a slower pace were “playing right in the hands of a lot of people that don’t want to see it happen.” He identified China as one possible beneficiary and called the warnings a hoax. Huang agreed, publicly aligning Nvidia with the administration’s argument that the United States must keep building AI systems rather than impose a broad pause.
“You’re right. We’re not going to let that happen, sir.”
Jensen Huang, chief executive officer, Nvidia
Trump later added that the United States should proceed carefully but should not stop the industry. “We have to do things and we have to do them prudently, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop an industry,” he said. “So I’m with you all the way.”
Anthropic’s slowdown proposal faces a direct rebuke
The exchange came as Huang and the All-In hosts discussed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call to slow the pace at which AI capabilities improve. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk have publicly backed Amodei’s position, placing Huang on the opposing side of an increasingly public dispute among technology executives.
Amodei’s proposal argues that AI companies need more time to develop safety measures and coordinate on standards. Altman has also said that pacing development would be worthwhile even if it carries economic costs. Huang’s message at the summit was different: companies should address specific risks without allowing safety concerns to halt the wider buildout.
The disagreement is not limited to model development. Data-center construction has become a parallel source of political conflict as communities debate electricity use, environmental effects and local costs. Recent Gallup polling found that 71% of Americans opposed data centers being built in their area. Among opponents, half cited the facilities’ excessive use of resources, including water and energy.
Nvidia has a direct financial stake in continued expansion
Nvidia supplies the processors and systems used to train and run many advanced AI models, giving Huang a direct business interest in continued investment by laboratories, cloud providers and data-center operators. A coordinated slowdown would threaten the demand that has made Nvidia the central hardware supplier for the current AI buildout.
Washington’s debate now has two competing tracks
The White House has framed AI competition as a national-security contest, while several AI executives are asking for government help with oversight, liability and international coordination. House Speaker Mike Johnson has argued that emergency regulation could cost the United States its lead, although he has also called for a discussion about the companies’ responsibility for safety.
Huang’s appearance does not settle that dispute. It does show how closely Nvidia’s strategy now tracks the administration’s preferred policy: build more computing capacity, preserve American leadership and address safety concerns without imposing a general brake on model development.