As Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO of Nvidia, who can succeed him at the helm of the AI ​​giant?

“I hope my replacement is already at Nvidia,” Jensen Huang told Bloomberg just a few weeks ago. The boss and founder of Nvidia, aged 63, was still very far from the various affairs which have shaken his company and his leadership for a week. He then felt that the question of his departure was not on the agenda.

But the situation has changed completely. For several hours, very serious American media The Wall Street Journal and Semafor have confirmed the intention of Nvidia's board of directors to oust its CEO. The decision has been made.

Jensen Huang is not fired, he is resigning from his positions as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors effective immediately. Temporary internal recruitment? In order not to leave a ship without anyone at the helm and to reassure the financial markets, it is Colette Kress, current executive vice-president and financial director of Nvidia who takes the position of general manager of the giant, but on a temporary basis, an iCEO.

The board of directors also announced that it was beginning the search for a permanent candidate, both internally and externally. According to Bloomberg, this research had even been launched in advance. The economic media indicated that the company used a recruitment firm to find the ideal profile.

But who could replace Jensen Huang? There are many candidates and the risks are high. Nvidia is the largest company in the artificial intelligence sector: it designs the AI ​​chips which are then found in most of the data centers which run the models of OpenAI, Anthropic and even Google.

If Jensen Huang was hoping for internal recruitment, the board of directors is therefore divided on the question. Semafor rightly asserted that the current financial director, Colette Kress, could take over in the interim. Ian Buck, who oversees data center clients, would also be considered.

Bryan Catanzaro, vice-president of deep learning research, is also cited by the economic media Inc.. Externally, there is no shortage of profiles As for the profiles to take the helm of the company on a permanent basis, there is a face from Apple: Johny Srouji. He serves as president of hardware technologies.

The profile is ideal: he had been tipped to take the helm of Intel in 2019, another important AI and chip company. We can also cite Rene Haas, who worked at Nvidia and who is now general manager of ARM - which was almost bought by Nvidia, before the deal was canceled due to excessive regulatory obstacles. The American press also believes that Tim Cook, former boss of Apple, and Eric Schmidt, former boss of Google, could also be approached, without forgetting Hock Tan, the current director of Broadcom.

But recruitment could just as easily remain within the family circle. Jensen Huang, helped by his position as Nvidia's largest shareholder, could push his children to take his place. Most of them already work within his company.

Madison Huang, his daughter, is director of product marketing. She previously cut her teeth within the LVMH group. Spencer Huang, for his part, takes care of product management within the robotics division.

Even more surprising The Information draws attention to Lisa Su, the boss of AMD. She is the distant cousin of Jensen Huang, and turned around AMD, allowing it to return to the race. His expertise could become a major asset for Nvidia.

This remains speculation, but the choice of the future leader will be decisive in not shattering the reputation of a company on which everything rests in the artificial intelligence sector.

Machine-translated from French