NVIDIA's new pay plan: Half salary in 'AI tokens'
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang just pitched a bold new idea at GTC 2026: Engineers could get part of their annual pay in "AI tokens."
These tokens, worth about half an engineer's base salary, represent computing power for large language models and are supposed to make engineers up to 10 times more productive.
What are AI tokens?
Think of AI tokens as digital credits for using advanced AI tools.
One token equals about three-fourths of a word generated by an AI model, so writing 750 words takes 1,000 tokens.
Big projects can burn through billions. Companies like OpenAI charge $15 per million tokens.
AI tokens could change the hiring game
If this plan goes through, NVIDIA proposed offering engineers an annual token budget on top of their regular pay.
This could become a big deal in job offers, future hires might start asking not just about salary but also how many AI tokens they'll get.
NVIDIA's data center revenue has surged recently
NVIDIA expects strong growth in AI infrastructure demand, and its Data Center revenue has surged recently (figure and YoY change reported elsewhere).
These new token perks are all about helping engineers keep up with the massive growth in AI tech.