NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has made this year’s Time 100, an annual list assembled by the popular magazine that aims to bring recognition to some of the most influential people on the planet.
Anyone who has even a shred of knowledge regarding the graphics industry should know why he was selected, as the executive and engineer was instrumental in jump-starting the age of the GPU following his founding of NVIDIA way back in 1993. NVIDIA is credited with inventing the GPU in 1999, a now-crucial piece of hardware that no gamer or professional can live without.
“With still emerging AI technologies creating an insatiable hunger for more computation, Huang’s team is well-positioned to keep driving technological advances for decades to come,” writes @AndrewYNg #TIME100 https://t.co/1Q4PCyZZPX pic.twitter.com/zmfIzcFeWA
— TIME (@TIME) September 15, 2021
In 2003, amid great skepticism, Huang directed his company Nvidia to adapt chips designed to paint graphics on computer screens, known as graphics processing units or GPUs, to perform other, more general-purpose computing tasks. The resulting advancements—and powerful chips—laid a foundation that could accommodate much bigger neural networks, the programs behind much of today’s AI. In the process, he has helped enable a revolution that allows phones to answer questions out loud, farms to spray weeds but not crops, doctors to predict the properties of new drugs—with more wonders to come.
Huang’s gamble paid off largely because he is among the world’s most technically savvy CEOs. He’s also a compassionate steward of his employees and a generous supporter of education in science and technology. With still emerging AI technologies creating an insatiable hunger for more computation, Huang’s team is well-positioned to keep driving technological advances for decades to come.
Huang is the chief highlight under Time 100’s Innovators section, but the CEO shares the list with a handful of other notable tech figures. These include Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Vitalik Buterin, the mastermind behind the Ethereum blockchain platform.
A print of the 2021 TIME 100 cover featuring Jensen Huang in his signature leather jacket can be purchased here for people who don’t mind being stared at by the CEO all day.
Source: Time