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PARIS (AP) \u2014 Will artificial intelligence<\/a> save humanity \u2014 or destroy it? Lift up the world\u2019s poorest \u2014 or tighten the grip of a tech elite? <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Jensen Huang<\/a>, the global chip tycoon, offered his opinion on Wednesday: neither dystopia nor domination. AI, he said, is a tool for liberation. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Wearing his signature biker jacket and mobbed by fans for selfies, the Nvidia<\/a> CEO cut the figure of a tech rockstar as he took the stage at VivaTech in Paris. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAI is the greatest equalizer of people the world has ever created,\u201d Huang said, kicking off one of Europe\u2019s biggest technology industry fairs. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n But beyond the sheeny optics, Nvidia used the Paris summit to unveil a wave of infrastructure announcements across Europe, signaling a dramatic expansion of the AI chipmaker\u2019s physical and strategic footprint on the continent. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n In France, the company is deploying 18,000 of its new Blackwell chips with startup Mistral AI<\/a>. In Germany, it\u2019s building an industrial AI cloud to support manufacturers. Similar rollouts are underway in Italy, Spain, Finland and the U.K., including a new AI lab in Britain. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Other announcements include a partnership with AI startup Perplexity<\/a> to bring sovereign AI models to European publishers and telecoms, a new cloud platform with Mistral AI, and work with BMW and Mercedes-Benz to train AI-powered robots for use in auto plants. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The announcements reflect how central AI infrastructure has become to global strategy, and how Nvidia \u2014 the world\u2019s most valuable chipmaker \u2014 is positioning itself as the engine behind it. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n At the center of the debate is Huang\u2019s concept of the AI factory: not a plant that makes goods, but a vast data center that creates intelligence. These facilities train language models, simulate new drugs, detect cancer in scans, and more. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Asked if such systems risk creating a \u201ctechnological priesthood\u201d \u2014 hoarding computing power and stymying the bottom-up innovation that fueled the tech industry for the past 50 years \u2014 Huang pushed back. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThrough the velocity of our innovation, we democratize,\u201d he told The Associated Press. \u201cWe lower the cost of access to technology.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n As Huang put it, these factories \u201creason,\u201d \u201cplan,\u201d and \u201cspend a lot of time talking to\u201d themselves, powering everything from ChatGPT<\/a> to autonomous vehicles and diagnostics. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n