Israel’s tech sector weighs Nvidia’s leadership uncertainty

Nvidia’s ties to Israel grew significantly after it bought chipmaker Mellanox for $6.9 billion in 2019. The company made Mellanox the base for its largest research and development facility outside the United States and has planned a multibillion-dollar campus in northern Israel. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s former CEO, drove the acquisition, and his departure has unsettled some in the local technology community.

“Jensen brought Nvidia to Israel with the acquisition of Mellanox, so there is a strong positive sentiment towards Nvidia and Jensen in Israel’s tech community,” cybersecurity entrepreneur Pavel Gurvich told TechCrunch. Whether the company will maintain the same level of commitment under a new leader is now a key concern.

Interim CEO Colette Kress has previously described Israel’s importance to her work. In a 2023 interview now circulating on X, she said that as Nvidia’s CFO she usually began her day “with Israel meetings, and only then continue[d] to California.” Two Israelis, Apple’s Johny Srouji and Nvidia’s Michael Kagan, have been mentioned among possible successors, though neither is at the top of a tentative list of candidates.

Investors expect a successor to wield less influence over Nvidia and the broader technology industry than Huang did, but they do not assume demand for Nvidia’s products will fall. Yanai Oron, a general partner at Vertex Ventures Israel, said slower decision-making could create room for competitors, but added that a slowdown in AI spending would leave them competing for a smaller market.

Nvidia has backed companies and invested heavily in its next-generation chips, helping drive spending across the AI industry. Adi Levanon, founder and managing partner at Selah Ventures, said Huang’s departure would not dismantle the company’s technology or ecosystem, but could give rivals more room to influence what comes next. Developers of AI-specific chips and inference software are attracting interest and venture capital as businesses deploy more demanding AI agents. “These challengers now have a window to prove a different approach delivers better economics; a leadership change alone won’t win them the business,” Levanon said.