Nvidia introduced the GeForce 256 in 1999 and later became a market-cap leader as demand surged for its graphics processors and AI-computing hardware.
Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem, Nvidia first became widely known for graphics processing units used in personal computers and video games. The company described the GeForce 256 as the world’s first GPU, helping establish GPU as a product category.
Nvidia’s CUDA platform, introduced in 2006, allowed developers to use compatible GPUs for general-purpose parallel computing. That capability became especially valuable for machine learning, where many calculations can run simultaneously. Data-center accelerators then became a major part of Nvidia’s business.
The GeForce 256 should not be confused with the later GeForce RTX family, which added hardware-accelerated ray tracing. Nvidia’s market value reflects expectations about future computing demand as well as current sales, so it can move sharply with technology cycles.