Jensen Huang

Jensen Huang
Born	Huang Jen-Hsun (黃仁勳) 17 2, 1963
Birthplace	Taipei, Taiwan
Nationality	American, Taiwanese
Occupation	Business executive, electrical engineer, philanthropist
Known for	Co-founder, president, and CEO of Nvidia
Education	Stanford University (M.S.)
Awards	Time 100 (2021, 2024), Robert N. Noyce Award (2024)
Website	[https://www.nvidia.com Official site]

Jensen Huang (born Huang Jen-Hsun, Template:Zh; February 17, 1963) is a Taiwanese-born American business executive, electrical engineer, and philanthropist who co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has served as its president and chief executive officer since its inception. Born in Taipei, Huang spent portions of his childhood in Taiwan and Thailand before immigrating to the United States, where he was raised in Kentucky and Oregon. After earning a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, Huang — then thirty years old — co-founded Nvidia at a Denny's restaurant in Silicon Valley alongside fellow engineers Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. Under his leadership, the company grew from a small graphics chip startup that nearly went bankrupt in the 1990s into the world's largest company by market capitalization, surpassing $5 trillion in October 2025. Huang's strategic decisions to expand Nvidia's focus from graphics processing units (GPUs) into high-performance computing and artificial intelligence (AI) positioned the company at the center of the global AI boom. Time magazine included Huang in its Time 100 list of the most influential people in both 2021 and 2024, and in 2025 named him one of the "Architects of AI" for its Person of the Year designation.

Early Life

Jensen Huang was born on February 17, 1963, in Taipei, Taiwan, to a family of Taiwanese heritage. He spent his early childhood in Taiwan before his family relocated to Thailand. As a young boy, Huang and his older brother were sent to the United States by their parents with the intention of enrolling them in school. The boys initially ended up in Kentucky, where Huang attended Oneida Baptist Institute, a boarding school in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The school, which served a rural community, was a markedly different environment from what Huang had known in Asia. According to accounts, Huang's roommate at the boarding school had a habit of carrying a knife, and the young Huang found himself in a challenging social setting far from his family.

Huang's mother played a formative role in his early English-language education. In a 2018 interview, Huang recounted that his mother taught him English using a method of learning ten random words at a time, a process that gradually built his vocabulary as the family prepared for life in the United States. After his time in Kentucky, Huang moved to Oregon, where he continued his schooling and began to develop interests in science and engineering. As a teenager, Huang reportedly excelled in academics and also became a competitive table tennis player, a pursuit that instilled in him a sense of discipline and competitive drive.

Huang's early experiences as an immigrant — navigating unfamiliar cultural and linguistic environments at a young age — shaped his resilience and adaptability, qualities that would later define his approach to business and technology leadership.

Education

Huang pursued his undergraduate education at Oregon State University, where he studied electrical engineering. He received his bachelor's degree from the institution, which would later honor his achievements as an alumnus. Following his undergraduate studies, Huang enrolled at Stanford University, where he earned a master's degree in electrical engineering. Stanford's proximity to Silicon Valley and its deep ties to the semiconductor and computing industries provided Huang with both the technical foundation and the professional network that would prove instrumental in the founding of Nvidia. His graduate work at Stanford deepened his expertise in microprocessor design and computer architecture, areas that became central to his career in the graphics and computing chip industry.

Career

Founding of Nvidia

In 1993, Jensen Huang, along with fellow engineers Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, co-founded Nvidia. The three men conceived the company during a series of meetings at a Denny's restaurant in San Jose, California, where they discussed the future of computing and the potential for a dedicated graphics processor to transform the personal computer industry. Huang was thirty years old at the time. He assumed the role of president and CEO, a position he has held continuously since the company's founding — one of the longest tenures of any active CEO of a major technology company.

The early years of Nvidia were marked by significant challenges. The company entered the highly competitive market for graphics accelerator chips in the mid-1990s, a period in which dozens of startups vied for dominance. Nvidia's first product, the NV1, was released in 1995 but struggled commercially due to its use of a non-standard approach to 3D rendering based on quadratic texture mapping rather than the polygon-based methods that were becoming the industry norm. The product's poor market reception brought the young company to the brink of bankruptcy.

Huang made the critical decision to pivot the company's strategy, abandoning the proprietary approach in favor of industry-standard polygon rendering. This willingness to admit a strategic error and change course is frequently cited as a defining moment in Nvidia's history. The company's subsequent product, the RIVA 128, released in 1997, was a commercial success and established Nvidia as a serious competitor in the graphics chip market.

Rise of the GPU

In 1999, Nvidia introduced the GeForce 256, which the company marketed as "the world's first GPU" (graphics processing unit). The term "GPU" was coined by Nvidia as part of this product launch, and the concept of a dedicated processor for rendering graphics became a defining category in the semiconductor industry. The GeForce 256 featured hardware-based transform and lighting capabilities, offloading significant computational work from the central processing unit (CPU) and dramatically improving 3D graphics performance for gaming and professional applications.

The success of the GeForce line established Nvidia as the dominant force in the consumer and professional graphics market throughout the early 2000s. Under Huang's leadership, the company expanded its product portfolio to include the Quadro line for professional workstations and the Tesla line (later renamed) for scientific and high-performance computing applications. Nvidia's acquisition of 3dfx in 2000 further consolidated its position in the market.

Huang's strategic vision extended beyond traditional graphics. He recognized early that the parallel processing architecture of GPUs could be applied to a broad range of computational tasks beyond rendering images. In 2006, Nvidia launched CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), a parallel computing platform and programming model that allowed developers to use Nvidia GPUs for general-purpose computing. CUDA enabled researchers and engineers to harness the massive parallel processing power of GPUs for tasks such as scientific simulation, financial modeling, and, eventually, the training of deep neural networks.

Artificial Intelligence and the AI Boom

Huang's sustained investment in GPU computing and CUDA positioned Nvidia at the center of the artificial intelligence revolution that accelerated in the 2010s and 2020s. As researchers in machine learning and deep learning discovered that GPUs were far more efficient than traditional CPUs for training neural networks, Nvidia's hardware became the de facto standard for AI computation. The company developed specialized AI chips and platforms, including the A100 and H100 data center GPUs, which became essential infrastructure for companies building large language models and other AI systems.

Under Huang, Nvidia expanded aggressively into the data center market, supplying chips to major cloud computing providers and technology companies pursuing AI development. The surge in demand for AI computing hardware, driven by the rise of generative AI technologies such as ChatGPT and other large language models, propelled Nvidia's revenue and market capitalization to unprecedented levels. In October 2025, Nvidia became the first company in history to reach a market capitalization exceeding $5 trillion.

Huang has spoken publicly about the relationship between Nvidia and its key manufacturing partner, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), which fabricates Nvidia's advanced chips. In early 2026, Huang stated that TSMC would need to "work very hard" to meet the escalating demand for AI chips, suggesting that Nvidia's demand alone could require the foundry to double its capacity over the next decade.

Huang has also addressed questions about Nvidia's relationships with major AI companies. In February 2026, he denied rumors about a potential deal involving OpenAI, stating to CNBC, "There's no drama," and clarifying that Nvidia's plan to invest in OpenAI was not the subject of any controversy.

Expansion into Automotive, Robotics, and Other Markets

Beyond AI and data centers, Huang has directed Nvidia's expansion into the automotive industry, where the company provides computing platforms for autonomous driving systems. Nvidia's DRIVE platform has been adopted by numerous automakers and autonomous vehicle developers. Huang was recognized as a 2020 Eurostar by Automotive News Europe for his contributions to the automotive sector.

Nvidia under Huang has also expanded into robotics, healthcare, and edge computing. The company's Omniverse platform, designed for 3D simulation and collaboration, and its Clara platform for healthcare AI have extended Nvidia's reach into new industries. Huang was included in the Broad Group's Edge 50 list, recognizing him as one of the world's top influencers in edge computing.

Leadership Style

Huang is known for his distinctive leadership style, which combines deep technical knowledge with a hands-on management approach. He has maintained an unusually flat organizational structure at Nvidia, with a large number of direct reports — a structure he has said enables faster decision-making and greater accountability. His public appearances frequently feature detailed technical presentations in which he personally demonstrates Nvidia products and articulates the company's technology roadmap.

A 2017 profile in Fortune magazine examined Huang's leadership approach and his role in transforming Nvidia from a gaming-focused graphics company into a diversified computing platform company. Huang was named to CEO Today magazine's listing of notable chief executives in 2020.

In 2019, Harvard Business Review included Huang in its annual ranking of the world's best-performing CEOs, a list that evaluates chief executives based on long-term financial performance and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria.

Personal Life

Jensen Huang is married to Lori Huang, whom he met during his time at Oregon State University. The couple has two children. Huang has spoken publicly about the influence of his family and his immigrant background on his values and work ethic.

Huang is known for his signature black leather jacket, which has become an iconic element of his public persona at Nvidia product launches and keynote presentations. His personal style has drawn attention in technology media and popular culture.

In February 2026, Huang celebrated his 63rd birthday at Nvidia's offices, where a cake from the Korean bakery chain Paris Baguette was served, drawing attention from international media.

Huang holds both Taiwanese and American citizenship. He has maintained connections to Taiwan, where Nvidia has significant business operations through its relationship with TSMC and other Taiwanese partners. In 2022, his visit to Taiwan drew significant media attention.

Recognition

Jensen Huang has received numerous awards and honors over the course of his career. Among the earliest was the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Northern California in 1999, received during the period of Nvidia's rapid growth following the launch of the GeForce product line.

In 2021, Time magazine named Huang to its annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world, recognizing his role in shaping the computing and AI landscape. He was again included on the Time 100 list in 2024, reflecting Nvidia's growing influence during the AI boom. In 2025, Time named Huang as one of the "Architects of AI" as part of its Person of the Year designation, acknowledging his central role in building the hardware infrastructure that underpins modern artificial intelligence systems.

The Semiconductor Industry Association announced that Huang would receive the Robert N. Noyce Award, the semiconductor industry's highest honor, recognizing his contributions to the advancement of semiconductor technology and the computing industry.

Huang has also been recognized by the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA), which awards the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership in the global semiconductor industry.

Oregon State University has recognized Huang as a distinguished alumnus, and he has delivered commencement addresses and participated in university events.

Legacy

Jensen Huang's career at the helm of Nvidia spans more than three decades, making him one of the longest-serving CEOs in the technology industry. His decision to co-found a company focused on graphics processing at a time when the market for dedicated graphics hardware was nascent, and his subsequent pivots into general-purpose GPU computing and artificial intelligence, transformed Nvidia from a small Silicon Valley startup into one of the most valuable companies in history.

Huang's promotion of the GPU as a general-purpose computing platform, particularly through the development of CUDA, is credited with enabling the modern deep learning revolution. By providing researchers and engineers with accessible, powerful parallel computing tools, Nvidia under Huang's leadership helped create the hardware foundation upon which contemporary AI systems — from autonomous vehicles to large language models — are built.

The founding story of Nvidia at a Denny's restaurant has become one of the most frequently cited origin narratives in Silicon Valley lore, symbolizing the modest beginnings from which transformative technology companies can emerge. Huang's trajectory — from a young immigrant adjusting to life in rural Kentucky to the leader of the world's most valuable company — has been cited as an example of the immigrant experience in American technology entrepreneurship.

Huang's influence extends beyond Nvidia's corporate performance. His public advocacy for the transformative potential of AI, his emphasis on the importance of semiconductor manufacturing capacity, and his engagement with global policy discussions about technology supply chains have made him a prominent voice in debates about the future of computing and its societal implications.