Nvidia’s graphics processors helped it become a leading market-cap company during the artificial-intelligence boom.
Nvidia designs graphics processing units, or GPUs, that can perform many calculations in parallel. That architecture made its chips especially useful for training and running large artificial-intelligence models, although the company also serves gaming, professional visualization, automotive, and data-center markets.
The company was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. Its CUDA software platform, introduced in 2006, allowed developers to use Nvidia GPUs for general-purpose parallel computing and became an important part of its AI ecosystem.
A market-cap ranking reflects the value of Nvidia’s outstanding shares at a particular share price. It is not the same as semiconductor manufacturing capacity: Nvidia primarily designs chips and relies on manufacturing partners for fabrication.