salaries of engineers specializing in AI are soaring in the United States

This text corresponds to part of the transcription of the report above. Click on the video to watch it in full.

A few kilometers from Silicon Valley, Stanford University trains some of the best engineers in the United States. Student Chase Joyner is one of the most sought-after profiles: he studies computer science and artificial intelligence. He still has six months left of his master’s degree, but there are already dozens of job offers on his social networks. “This one dates from last Monday. I received two on September 12, one on September 5. On average, it’s once a week”he explains.

Amazon, TikTok and even the video game Roblox, large groups ready to pay them nearly 1.5 times the average American salary for these young employees to develop tailor-made artificial intelligence for them. “I could earn at least $150,000 a year. When I compare my situation with that of my friends or members of my family, I realize how lucky I am to have studied like this”says Chase.

The average salary of an artificial intelligence engineer in the United States is almost three times higher than in France. And this figure can sometimes even explode if the employee owns shares in his company. This is the case for all employees of this company. It manufactures artificial intelligence for hospitals and factories. And last year, its value increased ninefold.

“I am very proud to announce that we have already made several millionaires among our employees last year. My company is now valued at $1.8 billion. Even for employees who only own 0.1%, that’s still a lot of money”said Arjun Prakash, CEO of AI Distyl.

A major argument for recruiting and keeping the most qualified engineers, because the digital giants are competing for them. To poach some of this talent, the biggest companies are raising the stakes. For example, Google offered $20 million per year to an engineer and Meta, Facebook’s parent company, contracts worth $100 million to $200 million over several years.

A war for talent, closely followed by these two digital specialists. In their online show, they comment on each transfer of engineers from one company to another, like a sports transfer window. “We released these fake trading cards. They’re like the ones you’d get for football players. Except they’re artificial intelligence scientists.”explains John Coogan, artificial intelligence specialist and host of the show TBPN. “These people are unknown to the general public. And overnight, they start making more money than some of the biggest business leaders in the world”completes his colleague Jordi Hays.

Last year, companies reportedly invested $250 billion in artificial intelligence, an increase of 25% year-over-year.