New technology to create new opportunities, says Schneider Electric CEO

New technology will make jobs obsolete but will also create a lot of opportunities, the CEO of Schneider Electric said Tuesday.

Speaking to CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jean-Pascal Tricoire said that a few trends were accelerating.

One was the “absolute digitization of every facility,” while the other was “Industry 4.0.” Tricoire said the latter related to the “convergence of IT technologies with operational technology” as well as the “massive injection of artificial intelligence.”

Boosting the efficiency of buildings was just one example of where human hands would still be required, he said.

“If you want to go back to those buildings with digital technology to make them far more efficient… (you will need) plenty of services, tech jobs on the ground to deploy those technologies. And that’s new jobs,” Tricoire said.

“And actually, when we put figures behind that we see a sector which is going to grow by 10 percent, at least, in Europe, for instance,” he added.