Jensen Huang and Lisa Su Snubbed By TIME's 2026 List of Top 100 AI Leaders

TIME's 2026 selection of the 100 most influential AI leaders has left Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su conspicuously absent from the list. Despite both having graced previous editions of the prestigious TIME100 AI and playing pivotal roles in the hardware driving the AI boom, Nvidia's only representative this year is sustainability chief Josh Parker.

Major tech executives and policymakers like Ben Affleck, Paris Hilton, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, and Huawei HiSilicon president He Tingbo are also included in the roster. Cerebras Andrew Feldman, CoreWeave's Michael Intrator, and Nscale's Josh Payne round out the diverse group. Parker's bio, categorized under Thinkers, highlights data center energy and water consumption, Nvidia's tripling of Scope 3 emissions, and the shift towards 100% liquid cooling in the Rubin platform.

TIME editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs revealed that the list was curated by Ayesha Javed, who emphasized highlighting the year's key storylines and influential figures driving these developments. The 2026 edition of the TIME100 AI appears to have prioritized featuring new entrants to the AI leaders' community, with Mark Zuckerberg, Demis Hassabis, Sundar Pichai, and Satya Nadella among the other honorees.

Lisa Su's surprising omission is particularly noteworthy, given her strong track record with TIME. The magazine recognized her as the 2024 CEO of the Year, featured her on the 2024 AI list, and included her among December's Architects of AI.