Nvidia created the CUDA parallel-computing platform used widely for artificial-intelligence workloads.
Nvidia introduced CUDA in 2006 as a parallel-computing platform and programming model for its graphics-processing units. It allowed developers to use Nvidia GPUs for general-purpose computing rather than limiting them to graphics. That capability later became especially important for machine learning and artificial-intelligence systems.
The company's GPUs can perform many calculations simultaneously, a useful characteristic for training and running neural networks. Nvidia also built a broader software ecosystem around CUDA, including libraries and development tools that helped researchers and businesses use its hardware.
Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. Its rise in market value has been closely linked to demand for data-center accelerators and AI infrastructure. AMD and Intel also make important computing hardware, but CUDA is specifically Nvidia's platform.