Two days before her tryst with Jensen Huang popped, Nvidia’s Kimberly Powell pitched ‘robot hospitals’ to explain why world’s most valuable chipmaker is betting on healthcare

Nvidia’s perennial CEO, Jensen Huang, has resigned from the world's largest semiconductor company on Thursday, November 12, after embroiled in two extramarital affairs, including one with the company's healthcare chief, Kimberly Powell. Three days before that, when her name was still safe from the scandalous life of the 63-year-old founder, she appeared on a podcast to discuss a very different subject: the future of medicine.

In that recent episode of The Heart of Healthcare that aired on November 9, Powell spoke about how artificial intelligence could help doctors, accelerate drug discovery, and even turn hospitals into highly automated environments. The interview, which is believed to have taken place somewhere this week, had an intriguing title too, “Why Is the World's Most Valuable Company Betting on Healthcare?” It offered a glimpse into the business she had spent 18 years building at Nvidia.

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This whole thing also landed at a time when her role in the company is itself being questioned, in part because of her limited background in health or science. CNBC reported, citing a former employee who didn't want to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, that rumors of an affair between the two have circulated for years.

After the report of the affair, Reuters reported a third one on Thursday, citing two people's knowledge of the matter.

Kimberly Powell's 18-year journey at Nvidia and future healthcare

In the November 9 podcast conversation with host Michael Esquivel and guest co-host Megan Zweig, Powell traced her journey at Nvidia back to 2008, when the company was primarily known for making gaming chips.

The biggest change she observed was the emergence of agentic AI. “2026 is really ... the year that AI became useful,” Powell said, arguing that the technology was becoming more capable of addressing practical problems in healthcare moving far from just answering questions like a chatbot.

When asked about the future of AI in hospitals, Powell described the idea of a “hospital becoming a robot”, where technology could “sense, reason, and act in the physical world.” She envisioned autonomous wheelchairs like those operating in Japan that identify patients who need assistance and take them to check-in desks or medical appointments without anyone having to operate them.

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The goal, she said, is to reduce the 30% to 50% of healthcare professionals' time spent on non-clinical tasks like “bringing a cup of ice chips to a patient” who just left or came back from surgery.

How many affairs did Jensen Huang have - a timeline

As of now, the former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been linked to three extramarital relationships following a barrage of public disclosures and reports that led to his resignation.

On November 11, The New York Times reported that Huang had been involved in an “extramarital relationship” with Powell, who currently serves as Nvidia's vice president of healthcare. It cited five former Nvidia employees, and two of them told the publication they “were captured on video being affectionate” at a hotel during a company conference in San Jose in March.

Another woman, Alice Huang, a Singapore-based executive, whom US intelligence has suspected of acting as an intelligence asset for the Chinese government, is also being connected to Jensen. He had acknowledged being unfaithful to his wife, Lori, whom he had married for 40 years, in a November 8 message after this relationship became public.

Also Read: Watch: Jensen Huang’s reported extramarital partner Kimberly Powell walks the show floor in NVIDIA video

And most recently, news agency Reuters reported that the disgraced CEO was also involved with another woman, without naming her.

Powell canceled her scheduled appearance

Powell was scheduled to speak at the Milken Institute's Future of Health Summit in Washington on November 12. However, CNN correspondent Meg Tirrell, who was due to moderate the panel, said on November 11 that organizers had informed her that Powell had canceled her appearance.


Huang's departure from Nvidia followed the reports. The company announced on November 12 that he had resigned as president and CEO with immediate effect. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress was appointed interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor.