Hwang reached a new milestone on Friday when he overtook PC pioneer Michael Dell to become the world’s 13th richest person with a net worth of $106.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.Hwang’s fortune has soared by more than $62 billion this year thanks to insatiable demand for Nvidia chips used in artificial intelligence tasks.
Huang, 61, is part of a new generation of tech leaders as a wave of AI-driven tech billionaires that one analyst has dubbed “Gensanity” sweeps Silicon Valley. Other beneficiaries include Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Chief Executive Lisa Su and Supermicro Computer Inc.’s Charles Liang. Last month, Huang’s fortune surpassed that of any individual member of the Walton family, America’s richest clan, after the chipmaker reported another strong quarterly earnings.
Hwang’s wealth comes from his 3.5 percent stake in Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia, which he co-founded with Chris Malachowski and Curtis Prime in 1993. Nvidia became the first computer chip company to reach a $3 trillion market capitalization on Wednesday, surpassing Apple’s and approaching that level again on Friday.
Dell, 59, has a net worth of $105.9 billion and is a computer hardware maverick among tech super-rich who have often made their fortunes thanks to software companies. Dell made much of his fortune through his namesake company, which sells personal computers and servers. Still, Dell Technologies is benefiting from the recent success of AI, as companies need servers and other infrastructure to take advantage of NVIDIA’s advanced chips. Investors are increasingly viewing Dell, along with Supermicro, as NVIDIA’s partner of choice for this line of business. In early March, Dell’s stock price soared to an all-time high, joining the ranks of a handful of people with assets over $100 billion. Then, after reporting earnings that disappointed investors, the stock price tumbled and the founder’s fortune fell by about $12 billion in a single day. Nvidia now dominates the market for high-end accelerators used to train AI, and it commands an ecosystem of hardware and software solutions that rivals from AMD to Intel are scrambling to beat or copy.
And the company shows no signs of slowing down or letting rivals catch up: Huang said the company plans to upgrade its so-called AI accelerators every year.
