Jensen Huang - NVIDIA

Jensen Huang
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Born	February 17, 1963; Taipei, Taiwan
Nationality	Taiwanese; American
Education	Oregon State University (BS); Stanford University (MS)
Occupation	Businessman; Electrical engineer; Philanthropist
Known for	Co-founding Nvidia
Title	President and CEO of Nvidia (1993–present)
Spouse	Lori Huang (m. 1985)
Children	2
Relatives	Lisa Su (cousin)
Awards	IEEE Founders Medal (2020); VinFuture Prize (2024); Edison Award (2024); Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (2025);

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

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

Early life and education

Huang was born in Taipei and raised in Tainan, Taiwan, before moving to Thailand. He studied at Ruamrudee International School in Bangkok during the late 1960s. At age 9, he and his brother were sent to the United States, living first in Tacoma, Washington, then attending school in Oneida, Kentucky.

Huang later moved with his family to Beaverton, Oregon, and graduated from Aloha High School at age 16. He worked night shifts at a local Denny's restaurant while excelling in table tennis and academics. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University in 1984, followed by a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1992.

Career

Early industry work

Huang began his career designing microprocessors at AMD before moving to LSI Logic. There, he helped develop the GX graphics engine and met future Nvidia co-founders Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem.

Nvidia

In 1993, Huang co-founded Nvidia with Malachowsky and Priem. The idea for the company was formed at a Denny's restaurant in San Jose, California. The name “Nvidia” was chosen by Huang, derived from the Latin word invidia, meaning envy.

Huang became CEO from the company’s inception. Under his leadership, Nvidia survived early financial struggles, including a near-bankruptcy in the 1990s, and shifted to become a dominant force in graphics and high-performance computing. The release of the RIVA 128 in 1997 helped establish Nvidia’s success in GPU manufacturing.

As CEO, Huang oversaw Nvidia’s pivot to AI, data center computing, and autonomous systems. The company crossed $1 trillion in market capitalization in 2023 and reached $4 trillion in 2025.

Leadership style and public profile

Known for his hands-on leadership and informal style, Huang prefers working without a private office and has dozens of direct reports. By 2024–2025, his profile rose globally, especially in Taiwan, where media dubbed his visits "Jensanity". As of 2025, he is one of the most influential CEOs in technology.

Huang's law

Huang's law is a concept proposed by Jensen Huang during Nvidia's 2018 GPU Technology Conference. It observes that the compute performance of graphics processing units (GPUs) has been improving at a rate significantly faster than traditional CPUs.

While Moore's law predicted a doubling of transistor density every two years, Huang claimed that GPU performance more than tripled every two years due to synergistic improvements in architecture, software, and accelerated computing. Huang emphasized optimization across the computing stack—not just chip design—as a core driver of progress.

The principle gained popularity within the tech industry, especially as GPUs became central to modern AI workloads. However, some analysts criticized it as overly optimistic marketing. Studies have shown that GPU price-to-performance improvements have not always exceeded Moore’s law in consistent terms.

Philanthropy

Huang has contributed to multiple educational and charitable initiatives:

Donated $30 million to Stanford University, leading to the construction of the Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center.
Donated $2 million to Oneida Baptist Institute for construction of Huang Hall.
Donated $50 million to Oregon State University to support supercomputing and AI research.

In 2008, Huang and Nvidia contributed to rebuilding schools in China following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Awards and honors

1999: Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (High Technology)
2002: Daniel J. Epstein Engineering Management Award
2004: Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award
2005: Alumni Fellow, Oregon State University
2009: Honorary Doctorate, Oregon State University
2020: IEEE Founders Medal
2021, 2024: Named 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 in college at Oregon State University. They have two children, Spencer and Madison, who both work at Nvidia. The family resides in Los Altos Hills, California, with additional properties in San Francisco and Wailea, Hawaii.

Huang is related to Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, through his mother’s family. He holds dual U.S. and Taiwanese citizenship and speaks Taiwanese Hokkien.

Connections

Huang maintains close professional and personal relationships with several industry figures, including Morris Chang of TSMC and Charles Liang of Supermicro, whose company utilizes Nvidia chips in its servers.

References

External links