Definition: NVIDIA

(NVIDIA Corporation, Santa Clara, CA) The leading designer of graphics processing units (GPUs) for graphics and AI. Founded in 1993 by Jen-Hsun Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, NVIDIA launched its first multimedia processor, the NV1, in 1995. NVIDIA is a fabless company (chips are made elsewhere) that is known for its advanced designs.

Using its GeForce GPUs, NVIDIA, along with third-party vendors offer a huge variety of graphics cards under the GTX and RTX brands. Earlier card brands were Quadro and Titan. NVIDIA also made a system-on-chip (see Tegra). See GeForce.

NVIDIA Took Off in the 21st Century
As AI blasted onto the scene in the early 2020s, NVIDIA took a front-row seat and became one of the most valuable companies in the world. With its mastery of the graphics processing unit (GPU), the next logical step was an AI processor. Also known as a neural processing unit (NPU) and AI accelerator, the AI processor shares a very similar architecture to the graphics GPU, namely the parallel processing of huge amounts of mathematical calculations. NVIDIA AI GPUs are designed to support large language models, which are the cornerstone of advanced AI systems (see large language model). See A100, H100, DGX, Grace Hopper Superchip and Blackwell.

Inside NVIDIA Headquarters

NVIDIA's home office in Santa Clara, California is about as space age as its products.