100 leaders · 10 categories · 2026 edition

The Datagarchy 100 · 2026

A few hundred people decide what the world's data is for: who collects it, where it is stored, which models learn from it and what rules govern it. They run the clouds that hold it, the platforms that query it, the labs that turn it into intelligence and the regulators and researchers who try to keep that power in check. The Datagarchy 100 ranks the most influential of them, scored on scale, innovation, industry impact and public voice, with every profile compiled from public, cited sources.

How the list is ranked

Each leader is scored from 50 to 99 on four weighted criteria: scale of influence (30%), innovation (25%), industry impact (25%) and public voice (20%). Rank follows score. Every profile cites its public sources. Read the full methodology.

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The full list

100 leaders
  1. 1
    Portrait of Jensen Huang
    Jensen HuangCo-founder, President and CEO, Nvidia Corporation Cloud & Compute United States 98
  2. 2
    Portrait of Sam Altman
    Sam AltmanCo-founder & CEO, OpenAI AI Labs United States 98
  3. 3
    Portrait of Satya Nadella
    Satya NadellaChairman and CEO, Microsoft Cloud & Compute United States 97
  4. 4
    Portrait of Dario Amodei
    Dario AmodeiCo-founder & CEO, Anthropic AI Labs United States 96
  5. 5
    Portrait of Geoffrey Hinton
    Geoffrey HintonUniversity Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto; Nobel Laureate in Physics Research Pioneers Canada 96
  6. 6
    Portrait of Jeff Dean
    Jeff DeanCo-founder, Discovery Loop Research Pioneers United States 96
  7. 7
    Portrait of Larry Ellison
    Larry EllisonCo-Founder, Executive Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, Oracle Corporation Data Platforms United States 96
  8. 8
    Portrait of Sundar Pichai
    Sundar PichaiCEO, Alphabet Inc. and Google Cloud & Compute United States 96
  9. 9
    Portrait of Andy Jassy
    Andy JassyPresident and CEO, Amazon Cloud & Compute United States 95
  10. 10
    Portrait of Demis Hassabis
    Demis HassabisChairman & Chief Scientist, Google DeepMind / Alphabet AI Labs United Kingdom 95
  11. 11
    Portrait of Ilya Sutskever
    Ilya SutskeverCo-founder and CEO, Safe Superintelligence Inc. Research Pioneers United States 95
  12. 12 Zhang YimingFounder and Chairman, ByteDance Global Power China 95
  13. 13
    Portrait of Lisa Su
    Lisa SuChair and CEO, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Cloud & Compute United States 94
  14. 14
    Portrait of Yoshua Bengio
    Yoshua BengioFounder & Scientific Director, LawZero; Professor, Université de Montréal Research Pioneers Canada 94
  15. 15
    Portrait of C.C. Wei
    C.C. WeiChairman and Chief Executive Officer, TSMC Global Power Taiwan 93
  16. 16
    Portrait of Elon Musk
    Elon MuskFounder and CEO, xAI; CEO, Tesla; CEO, SpaceX AI Labs United States 93
  17. 17
    Portrait of Mark Zuckerberg
    Mark ZuckerbergFounder & CEO, Meta AI Labs United States 93
  18. 18
    Portrait of Ali Ghodsi
    Ali GhodsiCo-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Databricks Data Platforms United States 92
  19. 19
    Portrait of Fei-Fei Li
    Fei-Fei LiCo-Founder & CEO, World Labs; Sequoia Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University Research Pioneers United States 92
  20. 20
    Portrait of Masayoshi Son
    Masayoshi SonChairman and CEO, SoftBank Group; Chairman, Arm Holdings and Stargate LLC Global Power Japan 92
  21. 21
    Portrait of Tim Berners-Lee
    Tim Berners-LeeInventor of the World Wide Web; Professorial Research Fellow, University of Oxford Policy & Ethics United Kingdom 92
  22. 22
    Portrait of Yann LeCun
    Yann LeCunCo-Founder & Executive Chair, Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs (AMI Labs) Research Pioneers United States 92
  23. 23
    Portrait of Andrew Ng
    Andrew NgFounder & Executive Chairman, Landing AI; Managing General Partner, AI Fund Research Pioneers United States 91
  24. 24
    Portrait of Ion Stoica
    Ion StoicaExecutive Chairman, Databricks; Professor of Computer Science, UC Berkeley Data Founders United States 91
  25. 25
    Portrait of Matei Zaharia
    Matei ZahariaCo-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Databricks Data Platforms United States 90
  26. 26
    Portrait of Pony Ma
    Pony MaChairman and CEO, Tencent Holdings Global Power China 90
  27. 27
    Portrait of Alex Karp
    Alex KarpCo-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Palantir Technologies Data Platforms United States 89
  28. 28
    Portrait of Andrej Karpathy
    Andrej KarpathyResearcher, pretraining team, Anthropic Research Pioneers United States 89
  29. 29
    Portrait of Mustafa Suleyman
    Mustafa SuleymanCEO, Microsoft AI AI Labs United States 89
  30. 30 Soumith ChintalaChief Technology Officer, Thinking Machines Lab Open Source United States 89
  31. 31
    Portrait of Alexandr Wang
    Alexandr WangChief AI Officer, Meta Platforms (Meta Superintelligence Labs); Founder, Scale AI Data Platforms United States 88
  32. 32 Eddie WuChief Executive Officer, Alibaba Group Global Power China 88
  33. 33 Liang WenfengFounder and CEO, DeepSeek AI Labs China 88
  34. 34
    Portrait of Margrethe Vestager
    Margrethe VestagerFormer Executive Vice-President, European Commission (2014–2024); competition and digital policy adviser Policy & Ethics Denmark 88
  35. 35
    Portrait of Mukesh Ambani
    Mukesh AmbaniChairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited Global Power India 88
  36. 36
    Portrait of Thomas Kurian
    Thomas KurianCEO, Google Cloud Cloud & Compute United States 88
  37. 37
    Portrait of Wes McKinney
    Wes McKinneyPrincipal Architect, Posit PBC Open Source United States 88
  38. 38
    Portrait of Hadley Wickham
    Hadley WickhamChief Scientist, Posit PBC Open Source New Zealand 87
  39. 39 Matt GarmanCEO, Amazon Web Services Cloud & Compute United States 87
  40. 40
    Portrait of Safra Catz
    Safra CatzExecutive Vice Chair, Oracle Corporation Cloud & Compute United States 87
  41. 41
    Portrait of Daphne Koller
    Daphne KollerFounder and CEO, insitro Research Pioneers United States 86
  42. 42 Arvind KrishnaChairman and CEO, IBM Cloud & Compute United States 85
  43. 43
    Portrait of Frank Slootman
    Frank SlootmanChairman of the Board, Snowflake Data Platforms United States 85
  44. 44
    Portrait of Marc Benioff
    Marc BenioffChairman and Chief Executive Officer, Salesforce Data Platforms United States 85
  45. 45
    Portrait of Nandan Nilekani
    Nandan NilekaniNon-Executive Chairman, Infosys; Architect of India's Aadhaar digital identity system Global Power India 85
  46. 46
    Portrait of Arthur Mensch
    Arthur MenschCo-founder and CEO, Mistral AI AI Labs France 84
  47. 47
    Portrait of Doug Cutting
    Doug CuttingCreator of Lucene and Hadoop; formerly Chief Architect, Cloudera Open Source United States 84
  48. 48 Jack ClarkCo-founder and Head of Policy, Anthropic AI Labs United States 84
  49. 49 Jay KrepsCo-founder, Confluent (acquired by IBM 2026); board member, Anthropic Infrastructure & Analytics United States 84
  50. 50
    Portrait of Lina Khan
    Lina KhanHead, Center for Law and the Economy, Columbia Law School; Former Chair, US Federal Trade Commission Policy & Ethics United States 84
  51. 51
    Portrait of Nate Silver
    Nate SilverFounder and Publisher, Silver Bulletin; Advisor, Polymarket Data Science Voices United States 84
  52. 52 Sanjay GhemawatCo-founder, Discovery Loop Research Pioneers United States 84
  53. 53
    Portrait of Sridhar Ramaswamy
    Sridhar RamaswamyChief Executive Officer, Snowflake Data Platforms United States 84
  54. 54 Travis OliphantPresident, OpenTeams; Founder, Quansight Open Source United States 84
  55. 55
    Portrait of Michael Dell
    Michael DellFounder, Chairman and CEO, Dell Technologies Cloud & Compute United States 83
  56. 56
    Portrait of Timnit Gebru
    Timnit GebruFounder and Executive Director, Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR) Policy & Ethics United States 83
  57. 57
    Portrait of Aravind Srinivas
    Aravind SrinivasCo-founder and CEO, Perplexity AI Infrastructure & Analytics United States 82
  58. 58
    Portrait of Audrey Tang
    Audrey TangAmbassador-at-Large; Accelerator Fellow, University of Oxford Global Power Taiwan 82
  59. 59
    Portrait of Clément Delangue
    Clément DelangueCo-founder and CEO, Hugging Face AI Labs United States 82
  60. 60 George FraserCEO and Co-founder, Fivetran Data Founders United States 82
  61. 61
    Portrait of Michael Stonebraker
    Michael StonebrakerAdjunct Professor, MIT CSAIL; co-founder of multiple database companies Infrastructure & Analytics United States 82
  62. 62 Paul CopplestoneCo-Founder & CEO, Supabase Data Founders New Zealand 82
  63. 63
    Portrait of Robin Li
    Robin LiCo-founder, Chairman and CEO, Baidu Global Power China 82
  64. 64 Tristan HandyPresident, Fivetran + dbt Labs (co-founder of dbt Labs) Open Source United States 82
  65. 65
    Portrait of Aidan Gomez
    Aidan GomezCo-founder and CEO, Cohere AI Labs Canada 81
  66. 66 Benoît DagevilleCo-founder and President of Products, Snowflake Data Platforms United States 81
  67. 67
    Portrait of Shoshana Zuboff
    Shoshana ZuboffCharles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita, Harvard Business School Policy & Ethics United States 81
  68. 68
    Portrait of DJ Patil
    DJ PatilGeneral Partner, GreatPoint Ventures Data Science Voices United States 80
  69. 69
    Portrait of Salvatore Sanfilippo
    Salvatore SanfilippoCreator of Redis; Redis Evangelist, Redis Inc. Open Source Italy 80
  70. 70
    Portrait of Spencer Kimball
    Spencer KimballCEO and Co-founder, Cockroach Labs Data Founders United States 80
  71. 71 Barr MosesCEO and Co-founder, Monte Carlo Data Founders United States 79
  72. 72 Jeff HammerbacherCo-founder & Chief Scientist, Cloudera Data Science Voices United States 79
  73. 73
    Portrait of Kai-Fu Lee
    Kai-Fu LeeFounder and CEO, 01.AI; Chairman, Sinovation Ventures Global Power Taiwan / China 79
  74. 74
    Portrait of Max Schrems
    Max SchremsFounder and Chairman, noyb – European Center for Digital Rights Policy & Ethics Austria 79
  75. 75
    Portrait of Meredith Whittaker
    Meredith WhittakerPresident, Signal Foundation Policy & Ethics United States 79
  76. 76 Reynold XinCo-Founder & Chief Architect, Databricks Data Founders United States 79
  77. 77 Edo LibertyFounder and Chief Scientist, Pinecone Data Founders United States 78
  78. 78 Hannes MühleisenCEO & Co-founder, DuckLabs (formerly DuckDB Labs) Open Source Netherlands 78
  79. 79
    Portrait of Joy Buolamwini
    Joy BuolamwiniFounder, Algorithmic Justice League; author and researcher Policy & Ethics United States 78
  80. 80 Olivier PomelCo-founder and CEO, Datadog Infrastructure & Analytics United States 78
  81. 81
    Portrait of Usama Fayyad
    Usama FayyadChairman, Oasis500; Founder, Open Insights Data Science Voices United States 78
  82. 82 Maxime BeaucheminFounder & CEO, Preset Open Source United States 77
  83. 83 Nikita ShamgunovCo-founder and CEO, Neon (a Databricks company) Data Founders United States 77
  84. 84
    Portrait of Cassie Kozyrkov
    Cassie KozyrkovFounder & CEO, Kozyr Data Science Voices United States 76
  85. 85
    Portrait of Kate Crawford
    Kate CrawfordPrincipal Researcher, Microsoft Research; author of 'Atlas of AI' Policy & Ethics Australia 76
  86. 86
    Portrait of Pat Hanrahan
    Pat HanrahanCanon USA Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University; Chief Scientist and co-founder, Tableau Software Infrastructure & Analytics United States 76
  87. 87
    Portrait of Hilary Mason
    Hilary MasonCo-founder & CEO, Hidden Door Data Science Voices United States 75
  88. 88 Bernard MarrFuturist, Author and Founder, Bernard Marr & Co Data Science Voices United Kingdom 74
  89. 89
    Portrait of Bob Muglia
    Bob MugliaChairman, Fauna; Former CEO, Snowflake Computing Data Founders United States 74
  90. 90 Christian ChabotCo-founder, Tableau Software; philanthropist Infrastructure & Analytics United States 74
  91. 91 Dev IttycheriaInterim President and Chief Executive Officer, MongoDB Data Platforms United States 74
  92. 92 Jordan TiganiCo-founder & CEO, MotherDuck Open Source United States 73
  93. 93 Tomer ShiranCo-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Dremio Data Founders United States 73
  94. 94 Claudia PerlichSenior Data Scientist, Two Sigma; Adjunct Professor, NYU Stern Data Science Voices United States 72
  95. 95 Arvind JainCo-founder and CEO, Glean Infrastructure & Analytics United States 71
  96. 96 Kirk BorneChief Science Officer, DataPrime Data Science Voices United States 71
  97. 97 Monica RogatiData Science & AI Advisor; Fractional Chief Data Officer Data Science Voices United States 70
  98. 98 Mike OlsonCo-founder of Cloudera; technology investor and advisor Infrastructure & Analytics United States 68
  99. 99
    Portrait of Amr Awadallah
    Amr AwadallahFounder and CEO, Vectara Infrastructure & Analytics United States 65
  100. 100
    Portrait of John Edwards
    John EdwardsFormer UK Information Commissioner (2022-2026) Policy & Ethics United Kingdom 58