Nvidia designed the GPU hardware behind its CUDA parallel-computing platform.
Nvidia introduced CUDA in 2006 as a way for developers to use graphics-processing units for general-purpose computation. GPUs contain many smaller processing cores that can perform large numbers of similar calculations simultaneously, making them useful beyond graphics rendering.
The company was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. It first became widely known for graphics processors used in personal computers and video games. Later, its GPUs became important in scientific computing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
CUDA is Nvidia’s proprietary software platform and programming model, so it is not the same thing as a graphics card. Market investors often connect Nvidia’s high valuation with demand for data-center accelerators, but the company also sells gaming, professional-visualization, and automotive products.