Nvidia, the technology company at the centre of the global artificial intelligence boom, has donated $10 million to help Nepal recover from devastating floods and landslides.

The donation from the US-based company and its co-founder and chief executive, Jensen Huang, has been deposited into the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund through Himalayan Bank, the bank’s chief executive, Ashok Rana, said on social media.

The contribution is the largest financial assistance Nepal has received from a technology company since the Bhotekoshi River flood on August 26 and among the biggest corporate donations to the country’s recovery effort.

The donation was driven by more than 50 Nepali employees at Nvidia, who urged the company to support relief and reconstruction efforts following the disaster.

Their initiative has drawn attention to a company that, outside the technology industry, is perhaps less familiar than the products and services its chips help power.

Nvidia has evolved from a maker of graphics processors for computer games into one of the world’s most important suppliers of computing infrastructure for artificial intelligence.

Its graphics processing units, or GPUs, are used to train and run AI systems at some of the world’s biggest technology companies, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta.

That shift has transformed Nvidia’s fortunes. Its market capitalisation has risen above $5.5 trillion, making it the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.

The company was founded in California in 1993 by Huang and two other co-founders. It initially focused on graphics processors for personal computers and video games. But its GPUs proved particularly well suited to the enormous number of calculations required by modern AI systems, helping turn Nvidia into a dominant supplier of the hardware behind the AI boom.

Nvidia now employs more than 40,000 people worldwide, including more than 50 Nepalis, according to people involved in the donation effort.

Ashok Pandey, an Nvidia employee, led the initiative with Aarti Neupane and other Nepali colleagues, according to social activist and entrepreneur Hikmat Thapa, who helped coordinate the effort with the government.

“They took the initiative themselves and moved the effort forward for the rescue and relief of flood victims,” Thapa told Kantipur.

Thapa said Nvidia wanted assurances that the money would be properly used. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle helped provide those assurances and coordinate the contribution with the government.

Wagle thanked Huang in a video message posted on X.

“I am grateful to Jensen Huang, founder, chief executive and chairman of Nvidia, for contributing $10 million to the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund for the rescue, relief and rehabilitation of flood victims,” Wagle said. He added that he hoped the contribution would encourage other individuals and organisations to help.

The donation comes as Nepal deals with extensive damage from floods and landslides, including the destruction of homes, roads, hydropower projects and other infrastructure.

The disaster has prompted an international response, with governments, organisations and individuals providing humanitarian and financial assistance.

For Nvidia, the contribution is a departure from the company’s usual headlines, which tend to focus on its soaring valuation, AI chips and the growing profile of Huang.

Huang, 63, was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States as a child. He has become one of the most recognisable figures in the technology industry as Nvidia has grown into an AI powerhouse. His trademark black leather jacket and high-profile appearances have helped give him an unusually prominent public image for a technology executive.

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has compared Huang’s popularity in the technology industry with that of a pop star.

In Nepal, however, the attention around Huang and Nvidia is now centred on a far more immediate issue: helping communities rebuild after one of the country’s worst recent disasters.