Stephen Witt’s The Thinking Machine, about the rise of Nvidia and its hard-driving leader Jensen Huang, has won the 2025 Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award.
It is the second year in succession that the £30,000 award has gone to a book about the rapid spread of generative artificial intelligence. Last year’s winner, Supremacy by Parmy Olson, examined the rivalry between OpenAI and DeepMind.
Richard Oldfield, chief executive of asset management group Schroders, presented Witt with the prize at a dinner in London on Wednesday, mentioning how the judges praised The Thinking Machine’s “unique insights” into the success of Huang and Nvidia. In October, the chipmaker became the first company to surpass a market value of $5tn.
Roula Khalaf, FT editor and chair of judges, called the book “a fascinating account of the making of one of the most consequential companies of our times”.
Television producer and investigative journalist Witt was shortlisted for the FT award in 2015 for his book How Music Got Free, the story of how piracy and peer-to-peer sharing disrupted the recorded music industry.
