Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem.
The company began as a semiconductor designer focused on computer graphics. Its early products helped accelerate 3D graphics for personal computers, especially as video games became more visually demanding during the 1990s.
Nvidia’s GeForce graphics-processing units became important in gaming, while its CUDA software platform allowed developers to use GPUs for general-purpose parallel computing. That capability later proved valuable for machine learning and artificial intelligence, where large numbers of calculations can be performed simultaneously.
Nvidia’s rise in market capitalization was closely connected to demand for data-center accelerators used to train and run AI systems. Jensen Huang has led the company as CEO since its founding, making him one of the longest-serving leaders of a major modern technology company.