Nvidia designed the CUDA platform and popularized GPUs for artificial intelligence.
Nvidia introduced CUDA in 2006, allowing developers to use graphics-processing units for general-purpose parallel computing. That capability helped GPUs move beyond graphics and into scientific computing, machine learning, and data-center workloads.
The company was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. Its graphics processors became especially important for training and running modern AI models, sharply increasing investor interest in Nvidia and its market value.
CUDA is Nvidia’s proprietary software platform, not a type of chip. Nvidia also develops GPU architectures, networking products, and software libraries, while rival AMD offers its own competing GPU and computing technologies.