SAN FRANCISCO:Jensen Huang resigned as chief executive of AI giant Nvidia on Thursday after revelations he had two extramarital affairs, including one with a woman accused of spying for China.
Chief financial officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor, the company said, ending Huang's 33-year run at the helm of the global juggernaut he co-founded.
Huang, 63, also gave up his seat on the board. The company did not give a reason for his departure.
The scandal has sent shares of the multi-trillion-dollar company plunging, and the exit of Huang, who has been a key promoter of the artificial intelligence boom, leaves Nvidia without its leather-jacket-clad leader at a crucial time for the sector.
Huang was a central figure in the revolution set off by the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022, with Nvidia's powerful processors, once intended for video game graphics, becoming the crucial ingredient for building the AI models now spreading across the world.
At the heart of the spy allegations is the race between the United States and China, with both superpowers trying to get ahead in an industry widely seen as the next industrial revolution.
Nvidia shares were down as much as 13 per cent in early trading on Wall Street following the announcement, with $800 billion wiped off the company's valuation since the weekend.
Analyst Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives called it "a dark day for Nvidia and the US tech industry," but said the board had done what it needed to: "rip off the band-aid and take Nvidia into its next chapter without him."
The board said it had appointed Harvey Jones, a former chief executive of chip design software firm Synopsys, as chair.
"The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect the company's operations, customer commitments and product road map to continue without interruption," Jones said in a statement.
Kress said she was committed to "building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years." — AFP
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