Jensen Huang

Jensen Huang is an entrepreneur and businessperson. He is a cofounder and the CEO of NVIDIA, a Fortune 500 company valued at more than $300 billion. Huang's professional focus is on developing technology to improve graphics for computer screens and video games. He was named one of TIME Magazine's Most Influential People of 2021, along with other notable people, including Naomi Osaka and Dolly Parton.

Huang was born in Tainan, Taiwan on February 17, 1963. His family moved to Thailand during his childhood, and in 1973, his parents sent him and his brother to live with relatives in the United States. Huang and his brother were mistakenly sent to a boarding school for troubled boys when their relatives thought it was a private education facility. His parents later arrived in the United States, and Huang and his brother returned from the boarding school to complete their high school education at a school outside of Portland. Huang went on to earn his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University in 1984 and his master's degree in the same subject from Stanford University in 1992.

Huang started his career in technology shortly after obtaining his master's degree. Early in his career, he founded NVIDIA with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. The purpose of the company at the time was to improve graphics for video games and computers. In 1999, the company invented the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), which set higher standards for visual computing throughout the industry. As previously mentioned, NVIDIA is a Fortune 500 company, and Huang is CEO of that company.

Huang has won several awards throughout his career for his work within the technology industry::

• Entrepreneur of the Year in High Technology by Ernst & Young (1999)
• The Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award (2003)
• Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year (2017)
• The EDGE 50 list (2018)
• #1 Best-Performing CEO over their lifetime by Harvard Business Review (2019)
• Supplier CEO of the Year by Eurostars Automotive News Europe (2020)
• An honorary doctorate from National Taiwan University (2020)
• IEEE Founder’s Medal (2020)
• One of TIME Magazine's top 100 Influential People (2021)
• Robert N. Noyce Award (2021)

Huang has given back greatly to his alma maters. He donated $30 million to build the Jen-Hsun Huang School of Engineering Center at Stanford University and $5 million to Oregon Health & Science University for cancer research labs.

A rendering of the Jen-Hsun Huang School of Engineering Center at Stanford University

He also co-founded the Jen-Hsun & Lori Huang Foundation with his wife in 2008. Since its inception, the foundation has awarded tens of millions of dollars in grants to support higher education, public health, and STEM throughout the United States.