[fn Square] Jensen Huang’s Choice

According to author Stephen Witt, Nvidia Corporation CEO Jensen Huang is a fiery individual. Witt spent three years conducting in-depth interviews with Huang and those around him, resulting in the biography 'Jensen Huang, The Thinking Machine (2024)'.
"Huang was always charming and humble when I saw him. But one day, in front of a hundred people, he suddenly exploded and started shouting," recalled an employee who had only been with the company for a few months. Multiple accounts suggest that Huang’s anger follows a pattern and serves a purpose. There must be an audience, and he shares the failure with everyone present.
There are quite a few anecdotes that reveal his ruthlessness. For instance, when an employee made a minor mistake, Huang asked about the person’s work history and salary in front of thirty executives. As the employee hesitantly answered, Huang quickly calculated the total compensation received and demanded it all be paid back on the spot. The employee suffered nightmares for three months after the incident.
Huang, who started as an ordinary salaried circuit board designer, was inspired to found a company by two eccentric engineers. The three launched the business without grand ambitions. It is unclear exactly when Huang began to aspire to become a top figure in Silicon Valley, but many speculate it was after 1996, when he began aggressively recruiting talent from competitors. Those who joined Nvidia Corporation brought proprietary technologies from their previous employers, leading to constant patent disputes. In legal documents, one company even referred to Huang as 'Darth Vader.' Around that time, Nvidia Corporation released GeForce, the world’s first graphics processing unit (GPU), which shaped the company’s present.
Although he is undeniably cold and ruthless, this side of Huang is often overshadowed by his unique warmth. Aside from moments of anger, he is a master of communication and empathy. Most employees who have worked with him have at least one positive story to share. For example, after demanding an employee return their entire salary, Huang later volunteered to personally cover that employee’s medical expenses when they were diagnosed with a rare disease.
Huang works more than 14 hours a day, 80 hours a week. His hobbies are work, email, and more work. If an email arrives at 4 a.m., he replies by 4:05; if it comes at 5 a.m., he responds by 5:10. Employees are often stunned by his promptness. Looking back, Huang has always bet everything on tools he believed would shape the future, waiting for the right people to use them. Nvidia Corporation’s GPUs, Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA), and parallel computing technologies met with eccentric scientists’ deep learning research, ushering in the era of artificial intelligence (AI).
Jensen Huang’s renewed focus on Korea should be seen in this context. After 15 years, he visited Korea and announced a surprise plan to supply 260,000 units of the highly sought-after NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs, which are nearly impossible to acquire even at a premium. On his first day, he invited the heads of Samsung Group and Hyundai Motor to a chicken restaurant in Gangnam, Seoul, creating a media sensation. He also revealed a handwritten letter from the late Lee Kun-hee, former chairman of Samsung Group, in the same spirit. The 260,000 Nvidia Corporation GPUs will be distributed among Samsung Group, Hyundai Motor, SK Group, Naver Corporation, and government infrastructure. Until now, Korea’s total high-performance GPU holdings amounted to just 40,000 units. This marks a significant step toward becoming one of the top three AI powers—a goal that had previously been only rhetoric.
What must not be overlooked is the future as seen by the realist Jensen Huang. As recent earnings reports confirm, Nvidia Corporation’s dominance in AI chips is overwhelming. However, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is determined to shed its perennial second-place status, and tech giants like Google LLC and Meta Platforms Inc. are accelerating efforts to move away from Nvidia Corporation. This is why Huang is fully committed to leading the next generation of Physical AI semiconductors. The key to Physical AI lies in manufacturing powerhouses. The vast troves of data from Korea’s electronics, automotive, steel, shipbuilding, and defense industries provide fertile ground for Physical AI. Korea is the optimal country to provide the blueprint for the AI future Huang envisions. This is why he has chosen Korea as a future partner.
We should join hands with Nvidia Corporation as true partners and maximize our AI capabilities. However, it would be a mistake to remain merely a showroom for Nvidia Corporation’s Physical AI. Korea must pursue its own AI standards and independent ecosystem for manufacturing, even if the path is long. There is no reason we cannot achieve this. Ultimately, what is needed is capital and talent. The government must step up. A high-handed attitude that dismisses the relaxation of the separation of banking and commerce as just another corporate complaint will not help.
jins@fnnews.com Reporter