Rene Haas to take over Jensen Huang role at Nvidia? All about Arm Holdings CEO, ex-Vice President of Nvidia

Rene Haas has 35 years of experience in semiconductors and systems. Jensen Huang stepped down on Thursday after revelations of extramarital affairs, including one involving a suspected Chinese spy.

Jensen Huang's resignation followed by extramarital affairs scandal has forced Nvidia's board to search for a potential successor at the AI giant. The trillion dollar Santa Clara, California headquartered company has approached British chipmaker Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Haas is among several candidates being considered to succeed Huang and there is no guarantee he will be offered the job or accept it, FT reported.

Arm's US-listed shared pared losses after the report and were down more than 5 per cent. Nvidia's shares were down over 3 per cent.

Huang stepped down on Thursday after revelations of extramarital affairs, including one involving a suspected Chinese spy, plunging the chipmaker into crisis and sending shockwaves across an AI industry he helped bankroll.

Who is Rene Haas?

Since February 2022, Rene Haas has held the positions of Chief Executive Officer of Arm and a member of the Arm Board of Directors. During his tenure, he led Arm's return to the public markets through the largest IPO in 2023, its inclusion in the Nasdaq-100, Arm Holdings says.

Haas has established Arm as the foundational compute platform for the AI era -- from the smallest edge devices to the largest AI data centers, according to Arm Holdings. Rene joined Arm in 2013 and held senior leadership roles spanning strategy, commercial operations, sales, and marketing.

Rene Haas has 35 years of experience in semiconductors and systems.

Before Arm, he spent seven years at NVIDIA as Vice President and General Manager of its computing products business, leading one of the company's largest revenue contributors. Earlier in his career, he held executive roles at Scintera Networks and Tensilica.

Trouble for Nvidia?

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday he was frustrated with the Commerce Department's delay in placing restrictions on Nvidia chip exports to a company led by an alleged Chinese spy.

Bessent said on CNBC that his department, along with the departments of State and Defense and the U.S. Trade Representative, were in favor of adding Singapore-based Megaspeed International to an export control list for months but that the Commerce Department was in charge of the matter.