The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip

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Stephen Witt

The Thinking Machine

Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip

Stephen Witt

$36.99

Paperback

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English

Bodley Head
08 April 2025

Politics & government; Economics & Business; Entrepreneurship; Impact of science & technology on society; Technology: general issues; Artificial intelligence

The explosive story of the tech giant Nvidia - the producer of the only chip anyone involved in AI wants - and its charismatic, uncompromising, complicated CEO, Jensen Huang

The riveting account of Nvidia, the tech company that has exploded in value for its artificial intelligence computing hardware, and Jensen Huang, Nvidia's charismatic, uncompromising CEO.

In June of 2024, spurred by the frenzy of investment following the launch of ChatGPT, and thirty-one years after its founding in a Denny's restaurant, Nvidia became the most-valuable corporation on Earth. In The Thinking Machine, acclaimed journalist Stephen Witt recounts the unlikely story of how a manufacturer of video game components shocked Silicon Valley by conquering the market for AI hardware, and in the process re-invented the computer.

Essential to Nvidia's meteoric success is its visionary CEO Jensen Huang, who more than a decade ago, on the basis of a few promising scientific results, bet his entire company on AI. Through unprecedented access to Huang, his friends, his investors, and his employees, Witt documents for the first time the company's epic rise and its iconoclastic CEO, who emerges as a compelling, single-minded, and ferocious leader, and now one of Silicon Valley's most influential figures.

The Thinking Machine is the story of how Nvidia evolved from providing components for circuit boards to supplying hundred-million dollar supercomputers. It is the story of a determined entrepreneur who defied Wall Street to push his radical vision for computing, in the process becoming one of the wealthiest men alive. It is the story of a revolution in computer architecture, and the small group of renegade engineers who made it happen. And it's the story of our awesome and terrifying AI future, which Huang has billed as the 'next industrial revolution', as a new kind of microchip unlocks hyper-realistic avatars, autonomous robots, self-driving cars, and new movies, art, and books, generated on command.

By: Stephen Witt
Imprint: Bodley Head
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 155mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 406g
ISBN: 9781847928283
ISBN 10: 1847928285
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 08 April 2025
Audience: College/higher education , General/trade , Professional and scholarly , Primary , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Stephen Witt is the author of How Music Got Free, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Financial Times, New York magazine, Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone and GQ. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Reviews for The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip

Witt has a knack for explaining the science in ways that everyone can understand… A thrilling origin story... This is the rarest of books on tech – one that may just leave you feeling good about an entrepreneur founder and optimistic about the future * Sunday Times * Gripping and brilliantly told, this is the amazing story of the improbable origins of one of the most important technologies of our times * Mustafa Suleyman, author of The Coming Wave and CEO of Microsoft AI * Stephen Witt’s deep reporting shines through every page of The Thinking Machine. The result is a page-turning biography of perhaps the most consequential CEO and company in the world -- David Epstein, author of Range The Thinking Machine brilliantly captures the riveting, unlikely story of Jensen Huang’s Nvidia—a company driving the exponential growth of artificial intelligence and humanity's inevitable merger with technology. Stephen Witt’s exceptional reporting offers a rare glimpse into the pioneers driving humanity’s leap toward an infinite future -- Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Nearer A great story and Witt tells it well. He paints a rounded picture of a remarkable entrepreneur – part visionary, part maniacal workaholic, part inspiring corporate leader * Observer * Closely reported and brilliantly written ... Highly entertaining * Guardian * Thought-provoking, [and] occasionally alarming… Jensen Huang… deserves this wide-ranging account of his life and the meteoric rise of his company * Mail on Sunday * The Thinking Machine…is the second such corporate biography [on Nvidia]… Witt approaches his subject with a more critical eye and more verve * Economist * The richer and more accessible account of Nvidia’s 30-year journey from Silicon Valley…to AI behemoth * Financial Times * [A] deeply researched, illuminating and often rather funny book… for those wanting an engaging and revealing insight into what Nvidia’s journey to becoming one of most vital firms of the modern tech industry has been like, The Thinking Machine is unrivalled * Daily Telegraph * Witt has a knack for explaining the science in ways that everyone can understand… A thrilling origin story... This is the rarest of books on tech – one that may just leave you feeling good about an entrepreneur founder and optimistic about the future * Sunday Times * Gripping and brilliantly told, this is the amazing story of the improbable origins of one of the most important technologies of our times * Mustafa Suleyman, author of The Coming Wave and CEO of Microsoft AI * Stephen Witt’s deep reporting shines through every page of The Thinking Machine. The result is a page-turning biography of perhaps the most consequential CEO and company in the world -- David Epstein, author of Range The Thinking Machine brilliantly captures the riveting, unlikely story of Jensen Huang’s Nvidia—a company driving the exponential growth of artificial intelligence and humanity's inevitable merger with technology. Stephen Witt’s exceptional reporting offers a rare glimpse into the pioneers driving humanity’s leap toward an infinite future -- Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Nearer A great story and Witt tells it well. He paints a rounded picture of a remarkable entrepreneur – part visionary, part maniacal workaholic, part inspiring corporate leader * Observer * Closely reported and brilliantly written ... Highly entertaining * Guardian * Thought-provoking, [and] occasionally alarming… Jensen Huang… deserves this wide-ranging account of his life and the meteoric rise of his company * Mail on Sunday * The Thinking Machine…is the second such corporate biography [on Nvidia]… Witt approaches his subject with a more critical eye and more verve * Economist * The richer and more accessible account of Nvidia’s 30-year journey from Silicon Valley…to AI behemoth * Financial Times * [A] deeply researched, illuminating and often rather funny book… for those wanting an engaging and revealing insight into what Nvidia’s journey to becoming one of most vital firms of the modern tech industry has been like, The Thinking Machine is unrivalled * Daily Telegraph *