Nvidia: The history behind the most-watched company on Earth

The article traces Nvidia from its 1993 founding through milestones such as the 1999 GeForce 256 and the later adoption of GPUs for AI research.

Nvidia has grown from a small graphics firm into a company many observers now follow closely. The article reviews the company's origins and how its technology moved beyond gaming use cases. Nvidia was founded in 1993 and spent its early years focused on 3D graphics for video games and multimedia. That work led to the 1999 launch of the GeForce 256 GPU, which shifted graphics tasks away from central processors. Notable milestones: - Nvidia was founded in 1993 and initially focused on advancing 3D graphics for video games and multimedia. - In 1999 the GeForce 256 GPU marked a change by handling graphics tasks that had previously relied on CPUs. - The article notes that GPUs proved useful beyond graphics and were increasingly used for parallel processing in machine learning through the 2010s. - In 2016 Nvidia donated a DGX-1 system to OpenAI; the article links that donation to later developments in AI such as the 2022 launch of ChatGPT. - Nvidia continued advancing graphics with the 2018 RTX GPUs and developed platforms like Omniverse for digital twins and robotics. - The article mentions that Nvidia's stock and market presence draw significant attention and strong views from some analysts. Summary: Nvidia's path moved from a niche gaming graphics maker to a broader role as GPUs were adopted for AI and simulation. This piece is the first of a three-part series and says the next installment will examine Nvidia's financial history.