Jensen Huang Calls Michael Dell 'Pride of Austin' as Dell Shares 1985 Taiwan Throwback

A Nostalgic Exchange Between Two Tech Titans

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell engaged in a warm public exchange reminiscing about the formative years of the personal computer industry, with both executives trading memories about Dell's earliest days as a hardware entrepreneur.

Huang, who has long championed Taiwan's role in the global technology supply chain, looked back at how the availability of Taiwanese PC hardware and chipsets opened the doors for a generation of entrepreneurial pioneers — singling out Dell as a defining success story and calling him the “pride of Austin.”

'This Little Kid Named Michael Dell'

Recalling how Dell got his start in the hardware business, Huang explained how accessible off-the-shelf components allowed a young college student to build what would eventually become a global tech powerhouse.

“What started out as Compeq, IBM, because of Taiwan PC chipsets were available to all kinds of companies, including this little kid named Michael Dell. He just bought motherboards from Taiwan, assembled them into a PC, bought an operating system, licensed an operating system from Microsoft and he became a PC maker,” Huang said.

Huang emphasized Dell's deep-rooted connection to the island's technology ecosystem, adding: “Michael has a relationship in Taiwan that goes way back. He's from Austin, Texas, pride of Austin, and he's a good guy. What a nice man. Great human being.”

Dell's Reply: A 1985 Throwback

Acknowledging Huang's remarks, Michael Dell took to social media to thank the Nvidia CEO while sharing archival details of his earliest visits to Taiwan and the hardware behind his very first machines.

“Thanks very much @JensenHuang! My first trip to Taiwan was in 1985 when I was 20,” Dell wrote.

He also cleared up a common piece of confusion about his early supply chain, pointing out that it was Taiwanese printed circuit board manufacturer Compeq — not the computer company Compaq — that was instrumental in producing components for his nascent operation.

“Compeq (not Compaq 😂) made PCBs for us. This is the hand wired (Jay Bell, RIP) prototype of our first 286 based PC and the actual production motherboard,” Dell shared.

Before TSMC: A Different Semiconductor Landscape

Dell went on to note how dramatically the global semiconductor industry has changed since his early days, recalling a time before the rise of foundry giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

“It was based on a chipset from Chips and Technologies, they were produced in Japan at that time before TSMCs rise. I explained a bunch of this history in #PlayNiceButWin,” Dell wrote, referencing his book.

The exchange offers a vivid snapshot of how the PC revolution was built on open access to components — and how Taiwan's chip and board makers helped turn hobbyist tinkering into a multi-trillion-dollar industry.

Why It Matters Today

The tributes come as Taiwan's position at the center of the global AI and semiconductor supply chain has only deepened. With Nvidia's chips powering the artificial intelligence boom and Dell Technologies a major builder of AI servers and data center systems, the two companies remain tightly linked to the same island ecosystem that Huang credits with launching Dell's career four decades ago.