NVIDIA names Collette Kress interim CEO as Jensen Huang steps down

NVIDIA Corp. said it has named Collette Kress, its chief financial officer, as interim chief executive after co-founder Jensen Huang stepped down, according to The Robot Report. The company also appointed investor Harvey C. Jones as its first board chair.

The leadership change followed a week in which NVIDIA's stock fell by about 18.5%, the report said. Huang had recently admitted to extramarital affairs, according to the report. It listed a Megaspeed executive suspected of being a Chinese spy, Alice Huang, who is no relation, and Kimberly Powell, NVIDIA's vice president of healthcare.

In a statement dated Nov. 8, Huang wrote that the company's board had started an independent investigation into the national security concerns raised in news reports. He said he supported the inquiry and would cooperate fully.

In the statement, addressed to colleagues, the board, partners and shareholders, Huang told them: "you deserve better from me." The report did not say when the independent investigation would conclude.

Continuity message from the new leaders

Kress has been NVIDIA's CFO since joining in September 2013, and the company said she has played a key role in its growth. Before that she spent nearly 25 years in finance roles at technology companies including Cisco and Microsoft, according to the report.

Kress said she was committed to building on the foundation Huang created over 33 years, and that the company would keep advancing its work in accelerated computing and AI. Jones, who has served as CEO and executive chairman of Synopsys, described the leadership team as steady.

“She is supported by an experienced leadership team that has been instrumental in executing NVIDIA’s strategy and advancing its technology roadmap.”

Harvey C. Jones, NVIDIA board chair

Jones added that the board expected operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption.

Kress, for her part, said the company's focus remained on serving customers, partners, developers and shareholders. Jones is described in the report as an entrepreneur, technology executive and venture investor with more than 30 years of experience.

Robotics exposure and trade questions

Huang co-founded the Santa Clara, California-based company in 1993. It makes graphics processing units and software that underpin much of modern AI. According to the report, its technologies, including simulation tools, are used in industrial robot arms, autonomous mobile robots and emerging humanoid robots. The report put its market capitalization at about $4 trillion.

The Robot Report said China leads the world in robot manufacturing and use but still depends on U.S. AI chips and edge computing components. NVIDIA has worked with humanoid developers worldwide, including Unitree Robotics and Alibaba Cloud, and the report said recent revelations about possible circumvention of U.S. export controls could bring further investigations and reputational harm.

NVIDIA continued its robotics product work during the turmoil. This week it introduced GR00T 2 and Isaac Lab 3.0, an updated open world action model and the latest version of its open-source robot learning framework, according to the report.

In September, NVIDIA said it planned to buy the open AI development platform of Hugging Face Inc. for $12.9 billion. The report noted that Hugging Face subsidiary Pollen Robotics developed Microduck, an open-source legged robot that uses a Chinese processor, and said the deal is likely to face more scrutiny. It added that rivals such as AMD, Qualcomm, Arm and Intel may try to present themselves as more reliable Western suppliers.

Reuters and Morningstar noted that Huang's departure could slow AI-related deals, the report said. It added that the exit of a prominent technology executive could also draw closer government attention to trade deals as countries pursue so-called sovereign AI and robotics.

The report said NVIDIA outlined last month how developers of robots like Microduck might evaluate them with the company's tools, naming Isaac Lab, Newton, Omniverse libraries and Isaac Sim. It also noted that Huang spoke at GTC Berlin last month. The Robot Report said it would keep tracking these developments.