BEIJING - Jensen Huang has resigned as chief executive of AI giant Nvidia on Thursday.
His resignation comes after revelations that he had two extramarital affairs, including one with a woman accused of spying for China.
Chief financial officer Colette Kress will now 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, a close informal adviser to President Donald Trump on AI, 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.
Huang remains Nvidia's largest individual shareholder, with a stake of about 3.6 percent, according to the company's most recent filing.
- AFP