Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s pay falls 27% as AI stock frenzy slows despite chip giant’s dominance – Firstpost

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang saw his total compensation fall 27 per cent to $36.3 million in fiscal 2026 as the chipmaker’s once-explosive stock rally cooled, even while Nvidia maintained its dominance in the global artificial intelligence boom.

According to a regulatory filing released Tuesday, as reported by Bloomberg News, Huang’s equity awards — the largest component of his compensation — dropped 36 per cent to $24.8 million in the fiscal year ended January 25. In fiscal 2025, Huang had received $38.8 million in stock awards, helping lift his total pay package to $49.9 million.

The decline comes as Nvidia’s meteoric stock market gains begin to moderate after two years of explosive growth driven by surging demand for AI chips used in training large language models and data centre infrastructure.

Nvidia shares tripled in 2023 and more than doubled again in 2024, turning the company into the dominant force in the global AI hardware market. However, the stock rose a comparatively modest 39 per cent last year and is up around 18 per cent so far in 2026 — one of the slower growth rates among major semiconductor firms.

Huang’s base salary remained largely unchanged at $1.5 million in fiscal 2026, while his non-equity incentive compensation held steady at $6 million, the filing showed.

Despite the moderation in stock gains, Nvidia continues to dominate the AI semiconductor race, benefiting from massive spending by cloud providers, governments and technology firms building next-generation AI systems.

The company’s advanced graphics processing units, or GPUs, have become essential for powering generative AI platforms, making Nvidia one of the most strategically important companies in the escalating technology competition between the United States and China.

Huang has also emerged as an increasingly influential figure in US-China technology diplomacy.

This week, Huang joined US President
Donald Trump’s delegation to China after initially being left out of the high-profile business group travelling to Beijing for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

CNBC reported that Trump personally called Huang and invited him to join the trip after media scrutiny over Nvidia’s absence from the delegation. Huang reportedly flew to Alaska to board Air Force One mid-journey.

The development highlighted Nvidia’s growing geopolitical significance as Washington and Beijing remain locked in disputes over AI chips, export controls and semiconductor supply chains.

Over the past four years, the United States has tightened restrictions on advanced chip exports to China, targeting technologies that could enhance Beijing’s military and AI capabilities. Nvidia’s most advanced AI processors have been among the products affected by those controls.

Earlier reports had suggested the White House initially wanted Trump’s China visit to focus more heavily on agriculture, trade and aviation deals rather than artificial intelligence and semiconductors. However, Huang’s eventual inclusion signalled that AI policy and chip diplomacy remain central to US-China negotiations.

The Trump-Xi summit is expected to cover tariffs, rare earth mineral supplies, technology restrictions and broader trade ties between the world’s two largest economies, with Nvidia increasingly positioned at the centre of the global AI rivalry.