Nvidia developed the CUDA parallel-computing platform and became a leading designer of graphics processors used in artificial intelligence.
Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. The company initially focused on graphics hardware for personal computers and became especially associated with GPUs, or graphics processing units.
Nvidia released CUDA in 2007. CUDA allowed developers to use Nvidia GPUs for general-purpose parallel computing, not just rendering images. That capability became important in scientific computing, machine learning, and large-scale artificial-intelligence systems.
Nvidia designs chips and software but generally relies on outside manufacturers, especially Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, to fabricate its leading processors. This makes it different from an integrated manufacturer such as Intel. Its market capitalization rose sharply as demand for data-center AI accelerators expanded.