Nvidia developed the CUDA platform and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. The company first became known for graphics processing units used in computer games, where parallel processing could render complex images quickly.
Nvidia introduced CUDA in 2006. CUDA lets developers use compatible graphics processors for general-purpose computing, not just graphics. That capability helped Nvidia hardware become important in scientific computing, machine learning, and artificial-intelligence systems.
Nvidia’s market value rose sharply as demand for accelerated computing increased. The company is sometimes confused with AMD or Intel, which also design important processors, but CUDA is specifically associated with Nvidia’s software and hardware ecosystem.