Nvidia approached Arm CEO Haas to succeed Huang, FT reports

Nov 13 (Reuters) – Nvidia’s board has approached British chipmaker Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas in its search for a potential successor to Jensen Huang, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

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.

Haas’ name has been making the rounds among analysts since Huang’s exit. He spent seven formative years at Nvidia, rising to vice president and general manager of its computing products business, before joining Arm in 2013.

He is among several candidates being considered and there is no guarantee he will be offered the job or accept it, the FT reported. Nvidia’s finance chief Colette Kress is the interim CEO.

Arm declined to comment, while Nvidia did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reuters could not independently verify the report.

Haas became Arm CEO in 2022, overseeing the company’s Nasdaq listing in 2023. Arm designs processor architectures and licenses them to other companies that develop chip designs. Historically its strength has been in mobile phones and it is expanding into computers.

Arm’s US-listed shares pared losses after the report and were down more than 5%. Nvidia’s shares were down over 3%.

(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh in Barcelona and Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)