Jensen Huang - NVIDIA

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Jen-Hsun "Jensen" Huang (Template:Lang-zh; Template:Zh-p; born February 17, 1963) is a Taiwanese-American businessman, electrical engineer, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nvidia, the world's largest semiconductor company.

In 2025, Forbes estimated Huang's net worth at US$144 billion, ranking him as the ninth wealthiest individual in the world.

Early life and education

Huang was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and spent part of his childhood in Tainan before his family relocated to Thailand. He attended Ruamrudee International School in Bangkok.

At age nine, Huang and his brother were sent to the United States, initially living with a relative in Tacoma, Washington. Due to a misunderstanding, he was enrolled in the Oneida Baptist Institute in Kentucky, a reform academy. After two years, the family settled in Beaverton, Oregon, where he attended Aloha High School, excelling academically and becoming a nationally ranked table tennis player.

Huang earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University at age 20. He then worked in Silicon Valley while attending night classes at Stanford University, where he received a master's degree in electrical engineering in 1992.

Career

AMD and LSI Logic

Huang began his career at AMD as a chip designer and later joined LSI Logic, where he developed the GX graphics engine alongside Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. The success of this chip laid the foundation for the future formation of Nvidia.

Founding Nvidia

In 1993, Huang co-founded Nvidia in San Jose, meeting with co-founders at a Denny’s restaurant. The company name derived from the Latin invidia ("envy"). With initial funding of $600 in cash and support from Sequoia Capital, Nvidia began building graphics chips aimed at accelerating PC gaming.

President and CEO

Huang has led Nvidia since its founding, surviving early near-bankruptcy and pivoting to triangle-based rendering that led to the release of the RIVA 128 in 1997. He has built Nvidia into a major player in AI and GPU computing and is recognized for innovative leadership.

In 2024, Nvidia surpassed a $3 trillion market cap, and in 2025 became the first company to reach $4 trillion. Huang's popularity skyrocketed, particularly in Taiwan, where his visits were dubbed "Jensanity". He remains one of the longest-serving CEOs in Silicon Valley.

Huang's law

Template:Main Huang's law is the observation in computer science and engineering that advancements in graphics processing units (GPUs) are growing at a rate much faster than with traditional central processing units (CPUs). In contrast to Moore's law, which predicted the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit would double about every two years, Huang's law states that GPU performance will more than double every two years[1][3][4][6].

The observation was made by Huang in 2018 at Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference. He highlighted that, over five years, Nvidia GPUs achieved a 25-times speedup versus the tenfold increase predicted by Moore’s law for CPUs over the same period. Huang attributed these results not just to hardware improvements but also to advances in software and artificial intelligence, emphasizing the importance of the entire computing stack[1][3][4].

In 2006, Nvidia's GPU had a 4x performance advantage over CPUs; by 2018, this had grown to 20x, with Nvidia GPUs improving 1.7x per year—more than triple every two years. Huang’s law also notes that removing bottlenecks and synergizing hardware and software have accelerated these gains[1][4].

Despite broad adoption of the term in tech circles, some critics question its validity and view it as marketing optimism. Studies found that GPU price-to-performance doubled roughly every 2.5 years between 2006 and 2021, slower than Huang’s law predicts, and some analysts say improvements are still dependent on fundamental chip advancements[1][3][4].

Philanthropy

Huang has donated to several institutions including:

$30 million to Stanford University to establish the Jen-Hsun Huang School of Engineering Center.
$2 million to Oneida Baptist Institute for the construction of Huang Hall.
$50 million to Oregon State University to establish a supercomputing institute.

In 2008, Nvidia also funded a school in China after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Awards

1999: Entrepreneur of the Year (Ernst & Young)
2002: Daniel J. Epstein Engineering Management Award
2004: Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award
2005: Alumni Fellow, Oregon State University
2009: Honorary doctorate, Oregon State University
2020: IEEE Founders Medal
2021 and 2024: Included in Time 100
2023: Time 100 AI
2024: Edison Award, VinFuture Prize
2025: Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering

Personal life

Huang met his wife Lori while studying at Oregon State University. They have two children. Spencer Huang previously ran a bar in Taipei and now works at Nvidia. Madison Huang is director of product marketing at Nvidia.

The family lives in Los Altos Hills, California, and also owns properties in San Francisco and Wailea, Hawaii.

Huang is a cousin of Lisa Su, CEO of AMD. He holds dual U.S. and Taiwanese citizenship and speaks Taiwanese Hokkien.

Friendship and collaborations

Huang is a longtime friend of Morris Chang, founder of TSMC, and Charles Liang of Supermicro, with whom Nvidia partners for using its AI chips in servers.

References

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External links