Time Person of the Year names Architects of AI 2025

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, takes his seat before a meeting of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education in the East Room of the White House, on Sept. 4, 2025, in Washington.
Alex Brandon/AP

Time has named the "Architects of AI" — the tech leaders driving today’s artificial intelligence boom, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI’s Sam Altman — as its 2025 Person of the Year.

The choice hits close to home in Texas: the state has become a major nexus for the AI economy, from massive data center investments by Google and database and cloud computing company Oracle to semiconductor and cloud infrastructure projects across the Lone Star State. Google alone recently announced a $40 billion plan to build three new AI data centers in Texas, marking its largest investment in any state.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks during a press conference at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation on Oct. 31.
Lee Jin-man/AP

Texas is also drawing in billions from joint ventures like OpenAI and Oracle’s Stargate AI infrastructure project — with multiple data center sites underway that will house hundreds of thousands of chips and support jobs and energy networks across West Texas.

Oracle is headquartered out of Austin, which also houses major operations for graphics card manufactures Nvidia and AMD.

Nvidia signed a seven-year lease for 54,000 square feet of space at the Crossings at Lakeline. The Silicon Valley chip design company says the space will allow it to expand its staff in the future.
Austin American-Statesman

What is Time's Person of the Year?

Person of the Year is Time’s yearly call on who or what most shaped the news — for better or for worse — over the past 12 months.

The franchise dates back to 1927 and has included presidents, pop stars, protesters, whistleblowers, social movements and even nonhuman picks like "The Computer" or "The Endangered Earth." It’s less a prize for being admirable and more a statement about who defined the year’s story.

Who was last year’s Person of the Year?

Last year, Time’s Person of the Year was Donald Trump, after he won a second, nonconsecutive term as president.

The magazine framed the choice around his political comeback — from facing multiple criminal cases and being sidelined by parts of his own party to reclaiming the Republican nomination and the White House.

Did Time mention Texas?

Yes. The article includes a section set in Abilene, describing the area as the location of the flagship Stargate data-center project backed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.

The Oracle campus along Lady Bird Lake in Austin, pictured in 2021. The company moved its corporate headquarters to Austin in 2020.
Ricardo Brazziell/Ricardo B. Brazziell / American-

Time uses the West Texas setting mainly to show where some of the physical infrastructure behind the AI boom is being built. The reference contextualizes Texas within the broader landscape of AI.