On November 12 local time, NVIDIA (NVDA.US) announced that its board of directors had approved Jensen Huang's resignation as president, chief executive officer (CEO), and director, effective immediately.

The company's current executive vice president and chief financial officer, Colette Kress, has been appointed interim CEO while continuing as CFO until a permanent successor is determined. The board will initiate a search process for a new CEO, considering both internal and external candidates.

Additionally, the board announced the appointment of Harvey Jones, former CEO of Synopsys with over 30 years of business management and venture capital experience, as the company's first board chairman.

Following Jensen Huang's departure from NVIDIA, the market is closely watching who will officially lead this artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant. Analysts and investors hope the new CEO will understand technology, possess vision, and have excellent financial management capabilities. After all, NVIDIA is not just a manufacturer but also a significant investor in the AI boom. Furthermore, managing a massive enterprise is likely a basic requirement for this position.

With the successor still unclear, external voices have begun "making choices" for NVIDIA. U.S. President Trump publicly named former Apple CEO Tim Cook as the "only choice" to succeed Jensen Huang, saying "one legend replaces another legend."

Kress, appointed as interim CEO, and NVIDIA veteran engineer Ian Buck, who has deep expertise in technology, are also seen as potential successors. The two respectively possess the two capabilities investors value most—financial management and technical strength.

Prediction market website Polymarket believes Buck is most likely to become the next CEO, followed by Kress, Arm Holdings (ARM.US) CEO Rene Haas, and Cook. Below are some NVIDIA CEO candidates discussed by chip industry observers.

1. Colette Kress — NVIDIA CFO

Analysts and investors say Kress's extensive experience, authority, and deep relationships with Wall Street make her a suitable candidate to lead NVIDIA through a crisis. Kress has served as NVIDIA's CFO since 2013. Before that, she had a long career at major technology companies including Microsoft, Cisco, and chip company Texas Instruments. If she takes the helm, an important question would be who assumes the role of technology visionary.

2. Ian Buck — NVIDIA VP of Hyperscale and High-Performance Computing

Buck joined NVIDIA in 2004 and is one of the key technology development leaders who drove the company's transformation from a gaming chip-focused business into the world's largest AI hardware giant. He played an important role in this, participating in leading the development of CUDA. CUDA is a software platform that enables NVIDIA graphics processors to support general-purpose computing. As the head of NVIDIA's AI hardware and software products, Buck also maintains close collaboration with major customers. Investors want the new CEO to be a visionary who can see future directions, and this is a significant part of Buck's responsibilities. Last year, Buck said at a Bank of America conference: "One of the most challenging parts of my job is often trying to predict the future, but AI always keeps surprising us."

3. Rene Haas — Arm CEO

Before joining Arm, Rene Haas spent a significant seven years at NVIDIA, during which he rose to vice president and general manager of the company's computing products business. In 2013, he joined Arm and became CEO in 2022, overseeing the British chipmaker's Nasdaq listing in 2023. In April this year, he also took over the international business of Arm's parent company SoftBank Group and serves as a board member of SoftBank Group. Arm designs processor architectures and licenses them to other companies, which then develop specific chip designs based on them. For a long time, Arm's strengths have been mainly in mobile phones, and it is now continuously expanding into the computer market. This creates significant business overlap with NVIDIA. NVIDIA is also a chip design company, but Arm is far smaller than NVIDIA in both revenue scale and employee count.

4. Tim Cook — Former Apple CEO

After Apple co-founder Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, Tim Cook took over and successfully completed the difficult task of leading Apple. Therefore, the experience of succeeding a legendary figure is indeed an important qualification in his resume. During his 15 years as CEO, he increased Apple's market value from $350 billion to as high as $4.5 trillion. Today, Apple remains the only company with a market value exceeding NVIDIA's. He earned praise for driving the design of best-selling products such as Apple Watch and AirPods, while also building and growing the company's services business, making it a massive revenue source for Apple. Cook further strengthened the strategy of making China Apple's primary manufacturing base. This approach brought enormous efficiency gains to the company but also exposed Apple to risks, especially after Trump raised tariffs. Meanwhile, Cook has actively built relationships with Trump, frequently maintaining contact by phone and attending private dinners with the president and others. Cook currently still serves as Apple's board executive chairman. He continues to travel globally to promote Apple's interests, including a trip to China in October this year—his third visit to China this year.

5. Pat Gelsinger — Former Intel CEO

Pat Gelsinger led an ambitious plan to turn around Intel's operations, but due to reform initiatives struggling to achieve substantial progress, he left the chipmaker in 2024, having served as CEO for less than four years. Nevertheless, Gelsinger remains one of the few executives globally who truly understands how to run a chip company. He is familiar with both chip design and manufacturing operations, as Intel is involved in both. Although NVIDIA does not manufacture chips itself, its success depends on maintaining close partnerships with manufacturers. Gelsinger began his career at Intel at age 18, worked there for 30 years, and rose to become Intel's first chief technology officer. After that, he worked at Broadcom's VMware for nearly a decade. In 2021, he returned to Intel as CEO.

6. Lisa Su — AMD CEO

Lisa Su leads one of NVIDIA's main competitors—AMD (AMD.US). If she succeeds Jensen Huang, it would deal a major blow to AMD and trigger chain reactions across the semiconductor industry. Both Lisa Su and Jensen Huang were born in Taiwan, China, and the two have said they are distant relatives. However, compared to Jensen Huang, Lisa Su is known for a distinctly different, much lower-key style. Jensen Huang often attracts large crowds whenever he visits Asia, while Lisa Su takes a more reserved approach. As U.S. export controls have caused NVIDIA's market share in China to shrink significantly, AMD under Lisa Su's leadership has still found ways into the Chinese market, including selling central processing units (CPUs) and consumer-oriented graphics processing units (GPUs). These businesses helped AMD gain a 4% share of China's AI chip market.

7. Sanjay Mehrotra — Micron Technology CEO

Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of memory chip maker Micron Technology (MU.US), has over 40 years of industry experience and maintains close partnerships with NVIDIA, which uses Micron products. Since 2017, Mehrotra has led America's largest memory chip manufacturer and driven the company's transformation into a key supplier in the AI systems field. Before joining Micron, Mehrotra co-founded flash memory pioneer SanDisk in 1988 and remained at the company until it was sold in 2016. He served as SanDisk's CEO starting in 2011, helping the company grow into a Fortune 500 semiconductor company. Under Mehrotra's leadership, Micron further deepened its partnership with NVIDIA and shifted its business focus toward high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI servers. This strategic transformation helped push the company's valuation to approximately $1 trillion, benefiting from surging demand for AI infrastructure.

8. Matt Murphy — Marvell Technology CEO

Matt Murphy, CEO of custom chip maker Marvell Technology (MRVL.US), has become an important figure in the AI infrastructure boom. He maintains close collaboration with NVIDIA while helping cloud computing giants develop custom chips to reduce dependence on NVIDIA processors. Since 2016, Murphy has led Marvell Technology, transforming the company from a storage-focused chipmaker into a key supplier in data center, networking, and AI infrastructure technology. Before joining Marvell, he held multiple positions at Maxim Integrated over a career spanning more than 20 years. Under Murphy's leadership, Marvell Technology has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom. The company expanded its custom chip business, won major cloud computing customers, and strengthened its partnership with NVIDIA. In June this year, Jensen Huang called Marvell Technology the next "trillion-dollar company," pushing its stock price to a record high.

9. Johny Srouji — Apple Chief Hardware Officer

Johny Srouji oversees engineering and development for all of Apple's hardware products. His responsibilities cover the microchips, cellular modems, displays, cameras, and batteries inside Apple devices, and he reports directly to CEO John Ternus. Before joining Apple, Srouji held senior positions in processor design at Intel and IBM. Srouji helped Apple grow into a company with strong chip design capabilities, enabling it to design its own processors. He joined Apple in 2008 and was responsible for leading the development of the iPhone's main processor. This work later evolved into Apple Silicon, Apple's custom-designed chip series for its devices. Both Apple and NVIDIA work with TSMC (TSM.US), which provides manufacturing services for chips designed by these two California companies. This gives Srouji deep insight into the workings of a key NVIDIA partnership.