Jensen Huang: Nvidia boss, AI visionary in black leather jacket
Relatively unknown to the general public only three years ago, Jensen Huang now stands as one of the most powerful entrepreneurs in the world as head of chip giant Nvidia.
The unassuming 62-year-old draws stadium crowds of more than 10,000 people as his company's products push the boundaries of artificial intelligence.
Chips designed by Nvidia, known as graphics cards or graphics processing units (GPUs), are essential in developing the generative artificial intelligence powering technology like ChatGPT.
Big Tech's insatiable appetite for Nvidia's GPUs, which sell for tens of thousands of dollars each, has catapulted the California chipmaker to a market valuation of over $4 trillion, making it the first company to surpass that milestone.
Nvidia's meteoric rise has boosted Huang's personal fortune to $150 billion – making him one of the world's richest people – thanks to the roughly 3.5% stake he holds in the company he founded three decades ago with two friends in a Silicon Valley diner.
In a clear demonstration of his clout, he recently convinced U.S. President Donald Trump to lift restrictions on certain GPU exports to China, despite the fact that Beijing is locked in a battle with Washington for AI supremacy.
'That was brilliantly done,' said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a governance professor at Yale University.
Huang was able to explain to Trump that 'having the world using a U.S. tech platform as the core protocol is definitely in the interest of this country' and won't help the Chinese military, Sonnenfeld said.
Born in Taipei in 1963, Jensen Huang (originally named Jen-Hsun) embodies the American success story.
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