Will AI replace Computer Hardware Engineers?
AI reaches some of this job’s work, but most of it stays with people.
31/100
Moderate exposure
More exposed to AI than 47% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 20% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 45% of the work
What the job involves
Research, design, develop, or test computer or computer-related equipment for commercial, industrial, military, or scientific use. May supervise the manufacturing and installation of computer or computer-related equipment and components.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(4)
- Write detailed functional specifications that document the hardware development process and support hardware introduction.
- Store, retrieve, and manipulate data for analysis of system capabilities and requirements.
- Analyze user needs and recommend appropriate hardware.
- Analyze information to determine, recommend, and plan layout, including type of computers and peripheral equipment modifications.
Within reach(4)
- Update knowledge and skills to keep up with rapid advancements in computer technology.
- Select hardware and material, assuring compliance with specifications and product requirements.
- Evaluate factors such as reporting formats required, cost constraints, and need for security restrictions to determine hardware configuration.
- Specify power supply requirements and configuration, drawing on system performance expectations and design specifications.
Out of reach(10)
- Confer with engineering staff and consult specifications to evaluate interface between hardware and software and operational and performance requirements of overall system.
- Design and develop computer hardware and support peripherals, including central processing units (CPUs), support logic, microprocessors, custom integrated circuits, and printers and disk drives.
- Build, test, and modify product prototypes, using working models or theoretical models constructed with computer simulation.
- Test and verify hardware and support peripherals to ensure that they meet specifications and requirements, by recording and analyzing test data.
- Provide technical support to designers, marketing and sales departments, suppliers, engineers and other team members throughout the product development and implementation process.
and 5 more
Also called
Hardware Engineer · Design Engineer · Engineer · Hardware Design Engineer · Computer Designer · Computer Engineer · Computer Tester · Microchip Specialist
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics