The image is hard to miss. Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, the company whose chips now power almost every artificial intelligence system on the planet, is sitting cross-legged on the floor of a crowded trade show booth. He is in a plain black tee, trousers, and sneakers. In his hand is a pint of beer. He is not rushing off to a board meeting. He is not giving a keynote. He is just chilling.

This was COMPUTEX 2026 in Taiwan’s capital city Taipei. It is one of the biggest technology fairs in the world, held from June 2 to June 5 at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center. After a packed day of announcements, handshakes, and stage appearances, Huang found a corner at GIGABYTE’s booth. He sat down on the ground beside Li Yitai, the company’s general manager, and the two shared a beer like old friends catching up after a long day. When a third person joined them, the three raised their bottles and knocked them together in a toast. A crowd gathered. Phones came out. And within hours, the video was everywhere.

ALSO READ

Jensen Huang’s everyday business

If you have been paying attention to Huang over the past few years, the COMPUTEX moment will not surprise you. The man has built an unmistakable reputation as a CEO who shows up in unexpected places and does unexpected things. And a lot of those things involve food. In fact, someone on the internet has been keeping count. As reported by Business Insider, a tech founder compiled what they call a “Jensen Eats” tally — a running list of every food spot Huang has been spotted at around the world. The current number stands at 47.

The list stretches from Korean fried chicken trucks in Santa Clara, California to hotpot restaurants in Shanghai, dim sum stalls in Hong Kong, among others. These are not curated press dinners. These are the kinds of places where you order from a window and eat standing up.

ALSO READ

Noodles in Beijing on a diplomatic trip

Perhaps the most striking of his recent food outings happened on May 15, 2026, during a moment loaded with geopolitical significance. Huang was in Beijing as part of a business delegation accompanying US President Donald Trump on a state visit to China.

The backdrop was intense as US-China tech tensions had been simmering for years, with Nvidia caught squarely in the middle over chip export restrictions.

At around 3 PM, Huang was seen in Nanluoguxiang, a historic alleyway in central Beijing famous for its street food. He stood on the pavement eating zhajiangmian, Beijing’s iconic fried bean sauce noodles from a red paper cup with chopsticks. For about thirty minutes, he just stood there, eating, chatting with people who recognised him, drawing a growing crowd of curious onlookers.

After the noodles, he walked over to a Mixue storefront and bought a peach oolong tea. By 4:30 PM, he was at Daoxiangcun, a traditional Beijing pastry shop, trying classic pastries and a fermented mung bean drink which. He later stopped by to watch a sugar figure blowing demonstration, where artisans sculpt animals out of molten sugar. He was done by around 5 PM, having spent two hours doing nothing more official than eating his way through an old Beijing neighbourhood.

Paying for strangers’ corn in Taipei

A few weeks later, Huang was back in Taiwan ahead of COMPUTEX. On a morning in May 2026, he visited Raohe Street Night Market in Taipei, one of the most famous food destinations in the city. He arrived around 11 AM to find a long queue already snaking outside a grilled corn stall. He joined the line. He did not ask for special treatment.

Then, at around 11:20 AM, he did something that set off a debate online — he offered to pay for everyone’s corn in the queue. The gesture immediately split the internet. Some called it genuine and warm. Others wondered whether it was a calculated bit of people-pleasing from a man who knows cameras follow him everywhere. But most people who were actually there in the queue seemed simply pleased.

Huang’s street food habit stretches back years. He has been spotted at Korean fried chicken trucks near Nvidia’s Santa Clara campus between 2023 and 2026. His visits to Taiwanese night markets go back to at least 2020. His South Korea outings including fried chicken and street BBQ at local spots — appear to date to 2022. He is frequent with his dim sum runs in Hong Kong, his pho spots in Vietnam, his hotpot dinners in Shanghai. There are no press releases about them. They just get noticed because someone with a phone recognises the man in the black leather jacket.

The GIGABYTE booth moment at COMPUTEX fits the same mould. This was not a photo op. It was a packed trade show day coming to a close, and a man sitting on the floor with a beer because he apparently wanted to. The crowd that gathered around the trio was not invited. The toast was not choreographed. It just happened.

There is a version of Jensen Huang who could have played this very differently. He runs a company worth more than most countries’ GDPs. He could have motorcades and green rooms and assistants who handle every interaction. Instead, he has a growing list of 47 food stalls and a viral video of himself on the floor of a trade show, clinking bottles with a hardware executive.