Nvidia India Push Passes to Kress as Huang Quits After 33 Years
Nvidia India deals worth over $2 Bn now sit with interim CEO Colette Kress after Jensen Huang quit on 12 November. Here is what changes for founders.
5 min read
Quick Take
- Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia’s chief executive on 12 November 2026, after 33 years.
- Nvidia India deals in play include Yotta’s $2 Bn chip order and a 1 GW Reliance data centre.
- Interim chief executive Colette Kress presents third-quarter results on 17 November, the first read for founders.
In this story4 sections
Jensen Huang resigned as chief executive of Nvidia on 12 November 2026, leaving India’s biggest AI projects, from Jamnagar to Bengaluru, under a new boss.
The board’s announcement of 12 November said he gave up the roles of president, chief executive and board member, effective immediately. Colette Kress, chief financial officer since September 2013, took over as interim chief executive.
India sits at the thin end of Nvidia’s startup portfolio. More than 4,000 Indian startups use the free Inception programme. The first equity cheque to an Indian company came only in August 2026.
That cheque went to Sarvam, a Bengaluru company building AI models for 22 Indian languages. The price was about $25 Mn for a 1.66% stake. The round valued Sarvam at $1.5 Bn.
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Nvidia India Deals Already Signed With Four Companies
Four Indian companies and one Indian fund have signed named deals with Nvidia since October 2024. StartupFeed counted them from the company’s own India announcements.
Reliance Industries has an agreement for Blackwell chips to run a 1 GW data centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat. That deal was set at a Mumbai event in October 2024.
Yotta Data Services is spending more than $2 Bn on 20,736 liquid-cooled Blackwell Ultra GPUs. A four-year deal worth more than $1 Bn puts an Nvidia cloud service inside that cluster. Yotta runs campuses in Mumbai, Gujarat and near Delhi.
Larsen and Toubro has a joint venture for a gigawatt-scale AI factory. The IndiaAI Mission is putting more than $1 Bn into home-grown compute, models and startups, and most of it runs on these chips.
| Indian partner | What was agreed | Size |
|---|---|---|
| Reliance Industries | Blackwell chips for the Jamnagar data centre | 1 GW |
| Yotta Data Services | Chip order, plus a cloud service inside the cluster | Over $2 Bn, 20,736 GPUs |
| Larsen and Toubro | Joint venture for an AI factory | Gigawatt-scale |
| Sarvam | First equity investment in India | About $25 Mn for 1.66% |
| Activate | Fund partnership for early-stage AI startups | $75 Mn, 25 to 30 startups |
Kress named her priorities in that announcement, and partners are on the list.
“Our focus remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders.”
Colette Kress, interim chief executive and chief financial officer, Nvidia. From the CEO transition announcement, 12 November 2026.
Startup Cheques Hit a Record Just Before Huang Left
PitchBook data show Nvidia joined 105 startup funding rounds in 2026. The count for 2025 was about 67.
That pace is what Indian founders now have to re-plan around. The chipmaker’s money often arrived as the biggest cheque in a round, which set the price other investors paid.
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Nvidia shares fell as much as 13% on the day of the resignation, before recovering part of the drop.
The first money into an Indian company came only three months before Huang left. A newer bet is an easier one to pause.
The India footprint is wider than the cheque book. The company reported more than 4,000 employees in India in 2024. The free Inception programme adds discounted hardware, cloud credits and training.
India’s Early-Stage Pipeline Runs Through a $75 Mn Fund
The newest India pipeline sits inside a $75 Mn fund run by Activate, an early-stage firm. Activate plans to back about 25 to 30 AI startups from it. Those companies get early access to Nvidia engineers and tools.
Activate was founded by Aakrit Vaish. Its backers include Vinod Khosla, Peak XV managing partner Shailendra Singh, Perplexity co-founder Aravind Srinivas and Paytm chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
In February 2026 the chipmaker also tied up with Accel, Peak XV, Z47, Elevation Capital and Nexus Venture Partners to find and fund Indian AI startups. It works with the non-profit AI Grants India on first-time founders too.
None of those deals has a public end date tied to Huang. They were built while he ran the company, and a new chief executive can reset the budget behind them.
What Indian Founders Should Watch on 17 November
Third-quarter results are due on 17 November, and Kress runs that call. It is the first place she has to say what happens to the investment programme.
Three things on that call matter to an Indian founder. Whether the startup investing keeps up the 2026 pace. Whether the India partnerships signed this year still have budgets.
The third is chip supply. Indian founders already find GPUs hard to buy, and some delay profit to lock in chips. A slower Nvidia would make that queue longer.
The board has said it expects customer commitments and the product roadmap to carry on without a break. Harvey C. Jones was named the first-ever chair of the board on the same day.
Jones was chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys before this. He has been an investor and technology executive for more than 30 years.
What this means for you
If you run an Indian AI startup that budgeted on Nvidia credits or an Nvidia-led round, your biggest backer has a new boss. Listen to the 17 November results call, and get a second term sheet or a second cloud quote before you sign anything in December.
StartupFeed Insight
The India position is wide but shallow. Four companies, one fund and more than 4,000 free programme members, against one equity cheque of about $25 Mn. That mix is cheap to keep and cheap to drop. The chip contracts with Reliance, Yotta and Larsen and Toubro should hold. The money is committed and the hardware is ordered. The soft layer is the risk: credits, engineer time and early-stage introductions. Watch the 17 November call. If Kress gives no number for startup investment, expect Indian seed rounds that priced in this support to reprice by March 2027.
By Saraswati Chaubey, Writer
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