Nvidia, a high-market-cap semiconductor company, was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem.
The three engineers established the company in California with the goal of developing graphics hardware for computer games and other visually demanding applications. Nvidia’s early success came from graphics processing units, or GPUs, which could render images more efficiently than conventional central processors for many workloads.
Nvidia later expanded its CUDA software platform, allowing developers to use GPUs for general-purpose parallel computing. That technology helped make the company important in scientific computing, artificial intelligence, and data centers, not just gaming.
Jensen Huang has served as Nvidia’s chief executive since its founding. Nvidia is sometimes confused with AMD because both design major graphics processors, but they are separate companies. Nvidia also designs chips and platforms while relying on outside manufacturers for much of its physical chip production.