Nvidia, founded in 1993, became one of the world’s most valuable companies during the artificial-intelligence boom.
Nvidia was established by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem in 1993. It first became widely known for graphics processing units, or GPUs, used in video games and professional graphics. GPUs later proved highly effective for the parallel calculations required by machine-learning systems.
Demand for data-center accelerators, especially for training and running generative-AI models, drove a dramatic increase in Nvidia’s revenue and share price during the 2020s. Because market capitalization reflects share price multiplied by shares outstanding, this rise pushed Nvidia into the highest-value group of global public companies.
Nvidia’s CUDA software platform helped developers use its hardware for general-purpose computing. The company also designs networking products and sells complete data-center systems, so its business is broader than consumer graphics cards alone.