These days, wherever Jensen Huang appears, the masses chant his name and grab selfies and his autographs.
He's no ordinary celebrity - what's more, this 61-year-old electrical engineer is the CEO of Nvidia, a powerful chip company whose value has just exceeded three billion dollars, briefly overtaking Apple as the second most valuable company in the world, before falling back.
"They literally treat him like a rock star," says technology analyst Bob O'Donnell.
"Jensen sees this as an opportunity to further strengthen Nvidia. He's clearly enjoying the moment."
His newfound status, along with an embroidered $9.000 Tom Ford motorcycle jacket, were on display this week at Computex in Taiwan, an annual technology conference that draws the world's biggest companies to the island.
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Huang, who was born in Taiwan but left it when he was just five, posed for countless photos and even signed a woman's top at the conference, wondering aloud if it was "a good idea".
It was, according to the local media, pure "Jensenity" (madness that follows Jensen).
It's all happening as US regulators reportedly plan to launch an investigation into major tech companies, including Nvidia, over their dominance of the artificial intelligence industry.
The interest Huang has generated has not gone unnoticed among his peers—Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, responding to a follower on social media who did not know who Huang is, described him as “Taylor Swift, but in the technological sector".
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What drives 'Jensenity'?
Huang is at the center of a technology boom, and his rise has coincided with Nvidia's status as a leading designer of artificial intelligence chips.
Taiwanese chip giant TSMC is the sole manufacturing partner of Nvidia's cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips.
Nvidia's success served as a big boost for TSMC, whose shares hit record highs on Thursday.
High-end chips, including those used for artificial intelligence, have become a source of geopolitical tension as the US and China race to dominate manufacturing in the field.
But at the very top of the game right now is Taiwan - that country makes almost all the most advanced chips in the world.
All of this has led to a great uproar surrounding Huang and the company he founded decades ago.
Its success is also a matter of pride for Taiwan, an independent island that Beijing claims as its own.
And as demands for control of the island become more aggressive, Taiwan's chip exports have become a lifeblood and tool of soft power.
“In Taiwan, it represents the story of a local guy who made it. It's something people can relate to," says O'Donnell.
Although he lives in Santa Clara, California, where Nvidia's headquarters are located, Huang often visits Taiwan.
He has always emphasized that Nvidia will continue to invest in the island.
Just this week, he told reporters that the company plans to build a regional headquarters in Taiwan, which is welcome news for the island.
Taiwan has been concerned that chip production will move overseas as manufacturers look for alternative supply routes in the event of a Chinese invasion.
Of course, there is also the success of Nvidia itself.
Its shares have jumped more than 200 percent over the past year.
The company was catapulted into tech stardom after artificial intelligence and the chips that power it became as cool as any other "fancy" new juicer.
Huang knows this well.
He presides over Nvidia's chip launches, which have been compared to massively watched Apple events.
In Taiwan, where he usually launches new products, he spoke for two hours about the history of the company.
"Nvidia's last major conference in San Jose was held at the stadium. It was full of holes, and huge lines of people couldn't get in. It was like a rock concert," says O'Donnell.
"This time he spoke at a sports stadium in Taiwan. I joked that he went on an arena tour."
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What do we know about Jensen Huang?
For one thing, Huang loves leather jackets.
He considers his wife and daughter the most responsible for the fact that it has become his distinguishing feature.
A Nvidia spokesperson says it has been wearing them for more than two decades.
His latest choice is a Tom Ford from the fashion house's 2023 collection - and he didn't take it off even during a visit to humid Singapore.
"Leather jackets can signal edge: a willingness to break the rules, to do things differently, to constantly challenge the status quo," says fashion stylist Sarah Murphy.
"Jensen's signature style gives him a casual, approachable energy," she adds.
A distinctive style is not uncommon among technology company executives.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was known for the clothes he wore all the time - a black Saint Croix turtleneck, blue Levis 501 jeans and New Balance 991 sneakers.
Zuckerberg is most often in plain sweaters and t-shirts from luxury fashion brands.
"Dressing the uniform" can help entrepreneurs create an image of stability in their own companies, Murphy says.
"People need consistency from a leader. When you dress in a uniform it makes things predictable in a market that is otherwise extremely volatile and unpredictable."
Beyond the leather jacket, Huang fits the description of a tech geek perfectly.
He was nine years old when his family moved to the West Coast of the USA.
He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University, and then earned a master's degree in the same field from Stanford.
He married longtime college girlfriend and lab partner Lori Mills, who is also an engineer.
The two have two children.
He worked at American chip maker AMD before co-founding Nvidia in 1993.
The company was originally known for chips that process graphics, especially for computer games.
It eventually shifted to artificial intelligence, a field it now dominates.
Interest in artificial intelligence skyrocketed after the launch of ChetGPT in 2022.
The chatbot was trained with the help of Nvidia's 10.000 graphics processing units (GPUs), assembled into a single supercomputer.
In May of last year, this propelled Nvidia into the an elite club of American companies worth at least a trillion dollars, joining names like Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft.
Nvidia is now the third most valuable company in the world, after Microsoft and Apple.
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Huang himself is worth about $106 billion, according to Forbes, making him the 14th richest man in the world.
O'Donnell says Huang will likely continue to appear at similar events, looking to cement Nvidia's brand.
"At tech conferences, everyone wants Jensen on stage, and he's happy to oblige. What he has achieved takes him everywhere. He's positioned himself as the face of generative artificial intelligence," says O'Donnell.
"The problem is that this industry does not tolerate monopoly. Nvidia has a huge market share, but competitors like AMD and Intel are already starting to catch up."
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