Jensen Huang Reconnects with Sega Legends in Japan, Honoring the $5M Lifeline That Saved NVIDIA from Bankruptcy 30 Years Ago During a high-profile visit to Japan this week, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang shared a poignant reunion with Shoichiro Irimajiri , the former CEO of Sega, and Yu Suzuki , the legendary game director behind the Virtua Fighter series. The meeting served as an emotional expression of gratitude toward Sega, the gaming giant that saved a struggling, young NVIDIA from complete financial liquidation in 1995. The fateful connection traces back to the mid-1990s. Founded in 1993, NVIDIA was a fragile, unproven startup. Concurrently, Sega was suffering heavy market losses against Sony's original PlayStation due to the overly complex architecture of its Sega Saturn console. In a desperate bid to reclaim its dominance, Sega began scouting for a cutting-edge graphics processing unit (GPU) partner to engineer the hardware for its next-generation system, which would eventually ...