Jen Hsun Huang Insider Information

Jen Hsun “Jensen” Huang is the co-founder, president, and CEO of NVIDIA, the graphics-processor company he founded in 1993 at age 30. 

Beginning with PC graphics, NVIDIA played an outsize role in building the computer gaming market into the largest entertainment industry in the world. In 1999, the company invented the graphics processing unit (GPU), making possible real-time programmable shading, a development that would define modern computer graphics and revolutionize parallel computing. The GPU has also set off the next generation of computing—modern AI.

Huang was born in the coastal city of Tainan, Taiwan in 1963 before his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Kentucky. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University before moving to California to attend Stanford University, where he earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering while also working full-time. 

Early in his career, Huang served as a director at computer chip manufacturer, LSI Logic, and as a microprocessor designer at semiconductor company, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., before founding NVIDIA.

In 2008, Forbes reported him to be the 61st highest-paid CEO in the U.S., and he ranks among the wealthiest Asian Americans in the country. He currently owns 3.6 percent of NVIDIA's stock. 

Huang has received numerous awards and accolades, including Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year in High Technology,” the Silicon Valley Education Foundation’s Pioneer Business Leader Award, the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award, the Daniel J. Epstein Engineering Management Award, and a spot on the inaugural EDGE 50 list—recognizing the world’s top 50 influencers in edge computing. 

More recently, the Harvard Business Review ranked Huang first on its list of the “World’s 100 Best-Performing CEOs” in 2019. He was also named Fortune’s “Businessperson of the Year” in 2017. 

NVIDIA has received its fair share of awards, too. In 2018, it was included among Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For,” Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies,” and MIT Tech Review’s “50 Smartest Companies,” among others.

Huang has also earned honorary doctorate degrees from Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University and Oregon State, and he has prioritized giving back to his alma maters. He gifted $30 million to Stanford for the Jen-Hsun Huang School of Engineering Center, $5 million to Oregon Health & Science University for cancer research labs, and $2 million to his high school, Oneida Baptist Institute, for a dormitory. 

Huang met his wife, Lori, during his time at Oregon State. They have two children together.