Hock Tan

Tan, born in Malaysia and educated at MIT and Harvard, became CEO of Avago Technologies in 2006 and pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy — including the purchase of Broadcom, whose name the combined company took — to assemble one of the industry's largest semiconductor franchises, later adding software assets including VMware.

Under Tan, Broadcom became one of AI's most important suppliers through two channels: co-designing custom application-specific accelerators for hyperscalers such as Google's TPUs and reported programs with other large AI buyers, and supplying the high-bandwidth switch silicon that connects GPU clusters.

His guidance on Broadcom's AI revenue has repeatedly reset market expectations, and the company's position as the go-to partner for custom silicon means it captures value regardless of which merchant GPU wins — making Tan one of the most consequential executives in AI hardware.