Sega kept paying Nvidia in 1996 for a chip Nvidia couldn't finish.
In 1995 Jensen Huang's two-year-old chip company had a contract with Sega, which wanted a graphics chip for its next game console. After about a year Huang saw the problem: Microsoft was making triangles the standard for PC graphics, and Nvidia's chip drew curved shapes. "Either way, we would be out of business," he told graduates at National Taiwan University in 2023.
So he told Sega's Shoichiro Irimajiri that the chip would not work and that Sega should find another partner. Then he asked Sega to pay anyway. "I was embarrassed to ask," Huang said.
Irimajiri won over Sega's top executives. Sega kept paying under the contract and kept the $5 million of Nvidia shares it had bought in 1995. Those payments bought Nvidia, in Huang's words, "six months to live." It built a new chip for the new standard and shipped it in 1997.
In July 2026 Huang went to Tokyo to thank Irimajiri in person: "If not for what Sega did for Nvidia, Nvidia would not be here today." In a September 2026 interview with Jiji Press, Irimajiri, now 86, said: "I came to like Jensen Huang's character, and bet everything on him."
One-minute true story. AI-generated illustration with narration by an AI voice.
What the captions say
- Sega kept paying Nvidia in 1996 for a chip Nvidia couldn't finish.
- In 1995 Jensen Huang's young chip company had a contract with Sega, which wanted a chip for its next console.
- After a year Huang saw the problem. Microsoft was making triangles the standard for PC graphics. Nvidia's chip drew curved shapes.
- Finish it, and Nvidia would be too far behind to catch up. Stop, and Nvidia would run out of money.
- So he told Sega's Shoichiro Irimajiri the chip would not work, and then asked Sega to pay anyway. I was embarrassed to ask, he said.
- Irimajiri, a former Honda engineer, won over Sega's top executives. Sega kept paying, and kept its $5 million of Nvidia shares.
- Sega's payments bought Nvidia, in Huang's words, six months to live. It built a new chip for the new standard and shipped it in 1997.
- Thirty years later Huang went to Tokyo to thank Irimajiri in person.
- In September 2026 Irimajiri, 86, said why. I came to like Jensen Huang's character, and bet everything on him.
