Time magazine names the 100 most influential people in the AI field. Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, etc. are all on the list.

On August 28th, local time in the United States on Thursday, TIME magazine released its 2025 "TIME100 AI" list, which identifies the 100 most influential figures in the global artificial intelligence field.

To complete this selection, TIME's editorial and reporting teams spent months conducting in - depth research on the candidates and widely solicited recommendations from industry leaders and dozens of experts. The final list brings together leaders, innovators, shapers, and thinkers who are shaping the future of artificial intelligence.

Regarding the significance of this list, Sam Jacobs, the editor - in - chief of TIME, said, "When we first launched the 'TIME100 AI' list in 2023, it was shortly after OpenAI released ChatGPT. That milestone made many people realize that artificial intelligence not only has the ability to rival humans but may even surpass them. What we hope to convey through this list is that the future of AI is ultimately determined by humans, not machines - including innovators, advocates, and artists, as well as every ordinary person concerned about the direction of technology."

Here are some of the individuals on the 2025 "TIME100 AI" list and the reasons for their inclusion:

I. Leaders

1. Elon Musk, Founder of xAI

Recommendation Reason: Even by Musk's usual high standards, 2024 was a remarkable year for him. His AI company, xAI, transformed an abandoned factory in Memphis into a supercomputer named "Colossus" in just 122 days. Shortly after the completion of this world's largest supercomputing center, xAI quickly expanded the number of NVIDIA GPUs inside to 200,000. In February this year, xAI launched its third - generation model, Grok 3, and then released Grok 4 in July, claiming it to be "the world's smartest AI system."

Musk founded xAI in 2023 with the aim of creating an AI path different from OpenAI's. He co - founded OpenAI in 2015 but later criticized ChatGPT for its "over - woke" tendencies. Although xAI entered the AI competition relatively late, it is accelerating its catch - up through large - scale investments: in July this year, the company raised $10 billion through debt and equity financing and is rumored to be seeking a new round of financing at a valuation of $200 billion.

However, xAI is still in the catching - up phase. Although the monthly active user count of its chatbot has reached 35.1 million, it lags far behind ChatGPT's 700 million weekly active users and Google Gemini's 450 million monthly active users.

2. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI

Recommendation Reason: In the field of artificial intelligence, the truly most influential figures are often not programmers with a formal education background. Although Altman doesn't have an undergraduate degree, his excellent business negotiation skills, political acumen, and personal charm not only make up for his lack of academic qualifications but also demonstrate leadership qualities far beyond the ordinary.

In 2025, the challenges faced by OpenAI have gone beyond the technical level: they need a leader who can navigate the Trump administration, negotiate with heads of states, manage the construction of ultra - large - scale data centers, and handle internal power struggles - all while precisely controlling the product release rhythm comparable to that of a tech giant. Altman has successfully managed all these challenges, making him the most powerful CEO in OpenAI's history.

Now, Altman continues to lead the continuous release of OpenAI's research results. At the beginning of August this year, the highly anticipated GPT - 5 was officially unveiled, and he compared its intelligence level to that of a "doctoral - level expert." Meanwhile, he is restructuring OpenAI's architecture, pushing this star institution towards a traditional for - profit company model.

3. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA

Recommendation Reason: Most CEOs dream of creating a product that everyone desires, but for Jensen Huang, achieving this dream has turned into a geopolitical test. The market's crazy demand for NVIDIA's AI chips has not only made the company the world's first to exceed a market capitalization of $4 trillion but also placed it at the center of the US strategy to contain China's technological rise.

Huang's efforts to navigate the Trump administration seem to be paying off. On July 14th, after the Trump administration issued a ban in April to prevent NVIDIA from selling a special - version H20 chip to China, the company finally obtained permission to resume exports. As a condition, NVIDIA has to hand over 15% of the relevant sales revenue to the US government.

4. Fidji Simo, CEO of OpenAI's Application Division

Recommendation Reason: In May this year, Altman announced that Fidji Simo, a senior executive in the tech industry, would join OpenAI as the CEO of the newly established application division. Altman emphasized at the time, "As we enter the next growth phase, Simo will focus on driving the large - scale development of the company's traditional functional departments."

Simo shoulders the heavy responsibility of leading OpenAI to profitability, and her professional resume is tailor - made for this challenge. As the former CEO of the fresh - food e - commerce Instacart, she successfully led the company out of the post - pandemic slump and achieved growth. Earlier, during her ten - year tenure at Facebook, she led the construction of the platform's commercialization engine, turning this social network into a profit - making giant by launching news - feed ads and video products.

However, OpenAI's situation is different in many aspects. Despite recent efforts to adjust the company's structure, OpenAI is still constrained by a non - profit board of directors - and Simo was a member of this board. The core mission of this board is to ensure that the company's actions always align with its founding purpose: to ensure that general artificial intelligence (AGI), which is more powerful than humans, benefits all of humanity.

5. Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Meta

Recommendation Reason: When Chinese competitors replaced Meta as the leader in the field of open - weight AI and Meta's Llama 4 failed to regain lost ground, Zuckerberg decided to use his "financial power." This high - stakes bet started with a $14.3 - billion poaching operation - 28 - year - old Alexandr Wang, the co - founder of Scale AI, joined Meta with several top engineers. Although critics see this as Meta's desperate attempt to catch up with the industry, it is just the beginning of Zuckerberg's billion - dollar talent acquisition spree.

Before suspending recruitment in August, Meta had poached at least 50 researchers from competitors, including investor and entrepreneur Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, the CEO of Safe Superintelligence, Shengjia Zhao, a researcher at OpenAI, and three core members who helped Google's DeepMind team win gold medals in the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Zuckerberg's strategy is based on the three pillars of modern AI development: massive data, powerful computing power, and top - notch talent. Meta has an advantage in the first aspect thanks to the vast amount of data generated by its social media empire, and the recent investments are aimed at filling the other two gaps. His ultimate goal is to create a "personal super - intelligence" - users can interact with it through Meta's smart glasses, achieving all - day intelligent companionship with "what you see is what you feel, what you hear is what you get."

6. Andy Jassy, President and CEO of Amazon

Recommendation Reason: More than two decades ago, Jassy led the creation of Amazon Web Services (AWS), which has now grown into the core infrastructure supporting the global Internet - and is regarded by Amazon as the strategic cornerstone for leading the current AI wave. Under Jassy's leadership, this tech giant is accelerating its layout in the field of artificial intelligence.

In the past year, Amazon has intensively launched a variety of AI products and services: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, which supports customers in deploying AI agents; Amazon Nova, a basic model suite; and Amazon Q, a generative AI assistant. The company is also competing head - on with NVIDIA by developing its own Trainium chips. In December last year, AWS announced a cooperation with Anthropic to build an ultra - large - scale AI supercomputer, planning to deploy hundreds of thousands of Trainium chips.

In the e - commerce warehousing field, Amazon was the first to deploy the AI robot Vulcan with tactile perception. According to official data, about 75% of Amazon's package deliveries worldwide are assisted by robot technology. The company is currently training warehouse employees on mechatronics skills on a large scale and has launched a robot - technology apprenticeship program.

Jassy also pointed out that the impact of artificial intelligence on white - collar jobs may be more significant. In an internal letter to employees in June, he admitted that with the widespread use of generative AI tools, the company's employee size is expected to gradually shrink in the next few years.

7. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic

Recommendation Reason: In June this year, Amodei took a bold action: when most top AI companies remained silent on the congressional proposal to "ban states from regulating artificial intelligence for ten years," this CEO of Anthropic published a signed article in The New York Times publicly opposing the policy, stating that "a ten - year regulatory ban is too simplistic and crude." Eventually, this proposal was rejected in the Senate by a wide margin of 99:1.

As a major competitor to OpenAI, Anthropic has always participated in the AI competition as a "responsible competitor" - while actively developing more powerful AI systems, it adheres to advocating regulatory and safety measures. Its chatbot Claude, with its excellent programming ability and creative thinking, has not only been recognized by the AI academic community but also widely welcomed by ordinary users. According to the latest data, the company's annualized revenue has exceeded $4 billion.

Amodei is gradually showing a more outspoken public image. In May, he warned that AI could cause a large - scale unemployment wave in the next one to five years, with half of the entry - level white - collar jobs in the US at risk of being replaced, and the unemployment rate may rise to a historical high of 20%.

8. Liang Wenfeng, CEO of DeepSeek

Recommendation Reason: Liang Wenfeng is known as the "price - slasher" in the Chinese tech circle. On January 20th this year, DeepSeek, founded by him, released its self - developed large - scale model R1, directly competing with OpenAI's latest model at that time, and achieved comparable performance to top US technology at a very low computing - power cost.

The media quickly focused on the core highlight of "only $6 million in training costs," making large - scale projects like OpenAI's "Stargate," which planned to invest $500 billion, seem extremely exaggerated. The panic in the market triggered a chain reaction: investors frantically sold US tech stocks such as NVIDIA, resulting in the evaporation of trillions of dollars in market value.

This entrepreneur, who switched from the trading industry to AI two years ago, has already shown the courage to disrupt the traditional industry pattern. Before R1 shocked the world, his aggressive pricing strategy had triggered a price war in the Chinese market, forcing tech giants like Baidu and Alibaba to significantly reduce the prices of their large - scale model services to 5% of the original price.

9. Alexandr Wang, Co - Head of Meta's Super - Intelligence Laboratory

Recommendation Reason: A new power combination has emerged in Silicon Valley: 28 - year - old Alexandr Wang, the co - founder of Scale AI, and Nat Friedman, the former CEO of GitHub. They both refused to serve as the interim CEO of OpenAI when Altman was briefly removed in 2023. Now, they are working together at Meta to drive the research and development of super - intelligence - a hypothetical AI system that surpasses human intelligence.

In their new positions, Wang serves as the Chief AI Officer, and Friedman is the Vice President of Product and Application Research. They fit well with Meta's corporate culture of "moving fast and breaking things," and are quickly assembling an all - star research team, recruiting many talents from top competitors such as Google DeepMind and OpenAI. Meanwhile, Meta is accelerating the construction of computing - power infrastructure, aiming to put the first gigawatt - scale computing - power cluster into production as soon as possible.

In a policy paper jointly written before joining Meta, Wang pointed out that super - intelligent AI could be "the most dangerous technological development since the nuclear bomb." But now, he and Friedman are building this technology within a company with over 3 billion users globally.

10. C.C. Wei, Chairman and CEO of TSMC