Stephen Witt Wins The Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award 2025 for Nvidia-Focused The Thinking Machine

Stephen Witt Wins The Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award 2025 for Nvidia-Focused The Thinking Machine

(IN BRIEF) Schroders and the Financial Times have named Stephen Witt as the 2025 Business Book of the Year Award winner for The Thinking Machine, an exploration of Nvidia, AI and the leadership of Jensen Huang. Witt received £30,000, with five shortlisted finalists receiving £10,000 each. Presented in London during the award’s 21st year, the judges praised the book for its research depth, storytelling and relevance to modern business and technology. The award continues to recognise influential business literature globally, with further details available at ft.com/bookaward.

(PRESS RELEASE) LONDON, 4-Dec-2025 — /EuropaWire/ — Schroders and the Financial Times have announced Stephen Witt as the winner of the 2025 Business Book of the Year Award, recognising his work The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip, published by The Bodley Head and Viking. The book charts Nvidia’s rise during the global AI explosion and profiles CEO Jensen Huang’s entrepreneurial drive in building one of the most influential semiconductor companies of the era.

Celebrating its 21st year, the award honours the title that offers the most compelling and enjoyable insight into contemporary business issues. The prize was awarded at a ceremony hosted at the InterContinental London Park Lane, attended by industry leaders including Schroders Group Chief Executive Richard Oldfield, Financial Times Editor Roula Khalaf — who chaired the judging panel — and Daisuke Arakawa, Senior Managing Director for Global Business at Nikkei Inc. The keynote address was delivered by Paschal Donohoe, Managing Director and Chief Knowledge Officer at the World Bank, and former Irish Minister for Finance.

Witt was presented with a £30,000 award, while £10,000 was awarded to each of the five runners-up, which addressed themes from global technology rivalry and supply chain chokepoints to progress, prosperity and China’s innovation strategies.

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the Financial Times, praised the winning title:
“A fascinating account of one of the most consequential companies of our time. Stephen Witt captures the motivation and vision of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang with remarkable clarity, revealing the forces shaping the AI era.”

Richard Oldfield, Group Chief Executive at Schroders, added:
“The Thinking Machine exemplifies outstanding research, sharp analysis and relevance. The shortlist was exceptionally strong this year, but Witt’s work stood out for the way it reflects the complexity and urgency of modern technological change.”

The judging panel, chaired by Roula Khalaf, comprised:

• Mimi Alemayehou, Founder and Managing Partner, Semai Ventures LLC
• Daisuke Arakawa, Senior Managing Director for Global Business, Nikkei Inc.
• Mitchell Baker, Founder and former Executive Chairwoman, Mozilla Corporation
• Sherry Coutu, Entrepreneur, Angel Investor and Board Leader
• Mohamed El-Erian, Rene M Kern Professor of Practice at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; Chief Economic Advisor, Allianz and Chair, Gramercy Funds Management
• James Kondo, Chairman, International House of Japan
• Randall Kroszner, Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics, University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business
• Adam Osborn, Head of Research, Asia ex Japan Equities, Schroders
• Nicolai Tangen, CEO, Norges Bank Investment Management
• Shriti Vadera, Chair, Prudential Plc and Royal Shakespeare Company

Runners-up

• House of Huawei: Inside the Secret World of China’s Most Powerful Company by Eva Dou
• Chokepoints: How the Global Economy Became a Weapon of War by Edward Fishman
• How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations by Carl Benedikt Frey
• Abundance: How We Build a Better Future by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
• Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang

Photography of the winner is available on Flickr, with event images released at 23:00 GMT. Information about submissions, eligibility and future entries can be found at ft.com/bookaward.

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The Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award

Entry forms and details of the terms and conditions are available from www.ft.com/bookaward. The annual award aims to identify the book that provides the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues, including management, finance and economics. The shortlist of six titles was chosen from a longlist of 16. Submissions were invited from publishers or bona fide imprints based in any country.

Eligibility

Books must be published for the first time in the English language, or in English translation, between 16 November 2024 and 15 November 2025. There is no limit to the number of submissions from each publisher/imprint, provided they fit the criteria, and books from all genres except anthologies are eligible. There are no restrictions of gender, age or nationality of authors. Authors who are current employees of the Financial Times or the close relatives of such employees, are not eligible.

Previous Business Book of the Year winners include: Parmy Olson for Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World (2024); Amy Edmondson for Right Kind of Wrong: Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive (2023); Chris Miller for Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology (2022); Nicole Perlroth for This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race (2021); Sarah Frier for No Filter: The Inside Story of How Instagram Transformed Business, Celebrity and Our Culture (2020); Caroline Criado Perez for Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (2019); John Carreyrou for Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (2018); Amy Goldstein for Janesville: An American Story (2017); Sebastian Mallaby for The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan (2016); Martin Ford for Rise of the Robots (2015); Thomas Piketty for Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014); Brad Stone for The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (2013); Steve Coll for Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power (2012); Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo for Poor Economics (2011); Raghuram Rajan for Fault Lines (2010); Liaquat Ahamed for The Lords of Finance (2009); Mohamed El-Erian for When Markets Collide (2008); William D. Cohan for The Last Tycoons (2007); James Kynge for China Shakes the World (2006); and Thomas Friedman, the inaugural award winner in 2005, for The World is Flat.

About the Financial Times

The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading news organisations, recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. The FT has a record paying readership of 1.5mn, while the wider FT Group has a global paying audience of 3mn across its portfolio of journalism, products and services.

Schroders plc

Schroders is a global investment manager which provides active asset management, wealth management and investment solutions, with £776.6 billion (€906.6 billion; $1064.2 billion) of assets under management at 30 June 2025. As a UK listed FTSE100 company, Schroders has a market capitalisation of circa £6 billion and over 5,800 employees across 38 locations. Established in 1804, Schroders remains true to its roots as a family-founded business. The Principal Shareholder Group continues to be a significant shareholder, holding approximately 44% of the issued share capital.

Schroders’ success can be attributed to its diversified business model, spanning different asset classes, client types and geographies. The company offers innovative products and solutions through four core business divisions: Public Markets, Solutions, Wealth Management, and Schroders Capital, which focuses on private markets, including private equity, renewable infrastructure investing, private debt & credit alternatives, and real estate.

Schroders aims to provide excellent investment performance to clients through active management. This means directing capital towards resilient businesses with sustainable business models, consistently with the investment goals of its clients. Schroders serves a diverse client base that includes pension schemes, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, foundations, high net worth individuals, family offices, as well as end clients through partnerships with distributors, financial advisers, and online platforms.

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About Nikkei Inc.

Founded in Japan in 1876, Nikkei has grown into one of the world’s largest independent media groups, with approximately 2.5 million paid subscribers in Japan. Our flagship English-language publication, Nikkei Asia, provides comprehensive pan-Asian reporting that serves as a crucial decision-making tool for our readers. In 2015, Nikkei expanded its international presence by acquiring the Financial Times, another global media brand. With the purpose of offering “better insights for a better world,” we never pander to power and are committed to delivering accurate and fact-based economic news. Our daily mission is to provide equitable, unbiased content that enables our readers across the globe to make better decisions.

SOURCE: Schroders