Nvidia is the semiconductor designer behind the GeForce graphics-processing brand.
Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem founded Nvidia in 1993. The company became known for graphics processing units, or GPUs, which were initially associated with computer graphics and video games. GeForce is Nvidia’s consumer graphics brand.
Nvidia’s GPUs later became important in high-performance computing and artificial-intelligence development because they can perform many calculations in parallel. The company also supplies software tools, networking products, and data-center systems. A common mix-up is treating Nvidia as a chip manufacturer in the same way as a foundry: Nvidia primarily designs chips and contracts manufacturing to companies such as TSMC. Its AI-related growth helped propel it into the group of companies with the world’s largest market capitalizations.