Nvidia is the company represented by the stock ticker NVDA and is a leading designer of artificial-intelligence chips.
Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. It first became widely known for graphics processing units, or GPUs, used in computer games. Those processors later proved highly effective for the parallel calculations required by machine learning.
The company’s CUDA software platform helped developers use Nvidia hardware for scientific computing and artificial-intelligence workloads. Demand for data-center GPUs then became a major driver of Nvidia’s revenue and market valuation, placing the company among the world’s most valuable listed businesses.
Nvidia designs chips and platforms but generally relies on specialized manufacturers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, to fabricate them. Intel and AMD are also important chip companies, yet their products, businesses, and market values are distinct from Nvidia’s.