Curtis R. Priem (born ) is an American electrical engineer. After co-founding the

Nvidia Corporation Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis ...

, he left the company and sold all of his shares in Nvidia by 2006.

Career

He received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...

in 1982. He designed the first graphics processor for the PC, the

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

Professional Graphics Adapter. From 1986 to 1993, he was a senior staff engineer at

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

, where he developed the GX graphics chip. He co-founded

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

with

Jen-Hsun Huang Jen-Hsun "Jensen" Huang ( zh, t=黃仁勳, poj=N̂g Jîn-hun, hp=Huáng Rénxūn; born February 17, 1963) is a Taiwanese and American businessman, electrical engineer, and philanthropist who is the president, co-founder, and chief executive of ...

and Chris Malachowsky and was its chief technical officer from 1993 to 2003. He retired from Nvidia in 2003 and sold all of his shares in the company by 2006. In November 2023, ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' estimated Priem's net worth to be approximately $30 million; if he had retained his shares in Nvidia, ''Forbes'' estimated that Priem would have been worth $70 billion. In 2000, Priem was named Entrepreneur of the Year. Since 2003 he has been a trustee of Rensselaer, in 2024 becoming the vice chair of the Board. In 2004 he announced that he would donate an unrestricted gift of $40 million to the Institute. Rensselaer subsequently created the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, named in his honor and usually referred to as "EMPAC" for short.09.11.04 Rensselaer Announces $1 Billion Capital Campaign — the Largest in the University's History
September 2004. He is also president of th
Priem Family Foundation
which he established with his wife Veronica in September, 1999. The foundation is non-operating (i.e., has no office or staff, and therefore, no overhead) and exists only to give money to other foundations or charities.

References

Nvidia people Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 1950s births American technology company founders American electrical engineers American chief technology officers American philanthropists {{US-business-bio-1950s-stub