Nvidia designed the GPU hardware that helped drive the modern generative-AI boom.
Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. The company became known for graphics processing units, or GPUs, which were first associated mainly with computer graphics and video games.
Nvidia’s CUDA platform, introduced in 2006, allowed developers to use compatible GPUs for general-purpose parallel computing. That capability became especially important for machine-learning workloads, which perform many calculations simultaneously. Large language models and other generative-AI systems rely heavily on accelerated computing during training and deployment.
Nvidia does not primarily manufacture every chip in its own factories. It is commonly described as a fabless semiconductor company, meaning it designs chips and contracts much of the physical manufacturing to foundries such as TSMC. Its rapid growth pushed the company into the top tier of global companies by market capitalization, although stock-market rankings change daily.