Nvidia Corporation
[Officially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as nVIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as ''n''VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to early-mid 2000s. ][Though unofficial, second letter capitalization of NVIDIA, i.e. nVidia, may be found within enthusiast communities and publications. ] ( ) is an American multinational technology company
incorporated in Delaware
The Delaware General Corporation Law (Title 8, Chapter 1 of the Delaware Code) is the statute of the Delaware Code that governs corporate law in the U.S. state of Delaware. Adopted in 1899, the statute has since seen Delaware become the most im ...
and based in
Santa Clara,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. It is a software and
fabless
Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclus ...
company which designs
graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...
s (GPUs),
application programming interface
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how t ...
(APIs) for
data science
Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge and insights from noisy, structured and unstructured data, and apply knowledge from data across a br ...
and
high-performance computing
High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems.
Overview
HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a mult ...
as well as
system on a chip
A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...
units (SoCs) for the
mobile computing
Mobile computing is human–computer interaction in which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage, which allows for the transmission of data, voice, and video. Mobile computing involves mobile communication, mobile hardware ...
and automotive market. Nvidia is a global leader in
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
hardware and software.
Its professional line of GPUs are used in workstations for applications in such fields as architecture, engineering and construction, media and entertainment, automotive, scientific research, and manufacturing design.
In addition to GPU manufacturing, Nvidia provides an API called
CUDA
CUDA (or Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a parallel computing platform and application programming interface (API) that allows software to use certain types of graphics processing units (GPUs) for general purpose processing, an approach ca ...
that allows the creation of massively
parallel programs which utilize GPUs.
They are deployed in
supercomputing
A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions ...
sites around the world. More recently, it has moved into the
mobile computing
Mobile computing is human–computer interaction in which a computer is expected to be transported during normal usage, which allows for the transmission of data, voice, and video. Mobile computing involves mobile communication, mobile hardware ...
market, where it produces
Tegra
Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics proc ...
mobile processors for smartphones and tablets as well as vehicle navigation and entertainment systems. In addition to
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
, its competitors include
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
,
Qualcomm
Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...
and AI-accelerator companies such as
Graphcore
Graphcore is a British semiconductor company that develops accelerators for AI and machine learning. It aims to make a massively parallel Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) that holds the complete machine learning model inside the processor.
Hi ...
.
Nvidia's GPUs are used for edge to cloud computing and
supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructions ...
s. Nvidia expanded its presence in the
gaming industry Gaming industry, game industry, or games industry may refer to:
* Gambling industry
** Especially in reference to casinos
** Online gambling industry
* Video game industry
* Industry related to games, generically
* GamesIndustry, subsidiary of ''E ...
with its
handheld game console
A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the cons ...
s
Shield Portable
The Nvidia Shield Portable (Nvidia Shield or NSP) is a handheld game console developed by Nvidia, released on July 31, 2013. The console runs on Android Lollipop 5.1, featuring a flip 130mm (5-inch) touchscreen display with 1280×720 resolutio ...
,
Shield Tablet
The Shield Tablet, later relaunched as the Shield Tablet K1, is a gaming tablet, developed by Nvidia and released on July 29, 2014. It was Nvidia's second portable gaming device that uses Android. Compared to the Shield Portable, the controller ...
, and
Shield TV and its
cloud gaming service GeForce Now
GeForce Now (stylized as GeForce NOW) is the brand used by Nvidia for its cloud gaming service. The Nvidia Shield version of GeForce Now, formerly known as Nvidia Grid, launched in Software release life cycle, beta in 2013, with Nvidia official ...
.
Nvidia announced plans on September 13, 2020, to acquire
Arm
In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between the ...
from
SoftBank
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...
, pending regulatory approval, for a value of US$40 billion in stock and cash, which would be the largest semiconductor acquisition to date. SoftBank Group will acquire slightly less than a 10% stake in Nvidia, and Arm would maintain its headquarters in Cambridge.
On February 7, 2022, facing increased regulatory hurdles, Nvidia signaled that it was dropping its acquisition of Arm. The deal, which would have been the largest ever in the chip sector, was valued at $66bn at the time of its collapse.
History
![Nvidia campus aerial](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Nvidia_campus_aerial.jpg)
Nvidia was founded on April 5, 1993, by
Jensen Huang
Jen-Hsun "Jensen" Huang (; born February 17, 1963) is a Taiwanese American billionaire business magnate, electrical engineer, and the co-founder, current president and CEO of Nvidia Corporation.
Early years and education
Huang was born in Tai ...
(CEO ), a
Taiwanese-American
Taiwanese Americans () are Americans who carry full or partial ancestry from Taiwan. This includes American-born citizens who descend from migrants from Taiwan.
As of the 2010 U.S. Census, 49% of Taiwanese Americans lived in the state of Califo ...
electrical engineer
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
who was previously the director of CoreWare at
LSI Logic
LSI Logic Corporation, an American company founded in Milpitas, California, was a pioneer in the ASIC and EDA industries. It evolved over time to design and sell semiconductors and software that accelerated storage and networking in data cente ...
and a
microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
designer at
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
;
Chris Malachowsky
Chris Malachowsky (born May 2, 1959) is an American electrical engineer, one of the co-founders of computer graphics company Nvidia.
Raised in the Oakhurst section of Ocean Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey, Malachowsky graduated from Ocean ...
, an engineer who worked at
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
; and
Curtis Priem
Curtis R. Priem is an American computer scientist.
He received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1982. He designed the first graphics processor for the PC, the IBM Professional Graphics Adapter.
F ...
, who was previously a senior staff engineer and
graphics chip
A video display controller or VDC (also called a display engine or display interface) is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computin ...
designer at
IBM and Sun Microsystems.
In 1993, the three co-founders believed that the proper direction for the next wave of computing was accelerated or graphics-based computing because it could solve problems that general-purpose computing could not. They also observed that video games were simultaneously one of the most computationally challenging problems and would have incredibly high sales volume. Video games became the company's flywheel to reach large markets and fund huge R&D to solve massive computational problems. With $40,000 in the bank, the company was born.
The company subsequently received $20 million of venture capital funding from
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. , Sequoia's total a ...
and others. Nvidia initially had no name and the co-founders named all their files NV, as in "next version". The need to incorporate the company prompted the co-founders to review all words with those two letters, leading them to "
invidia
In Latin, ''invidia'' is the sense of envy, a "looking upon" associated with the evil eye, from ''invidere'', "to look against, to look in a hostile manner." ''Invidia'' ("Envy") is one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christian belief.
''Invidia'' ...
", the Latin word for "envy".
Nvidia went public on January 22, 1999.
Releases and acquisitions
The release of the
RIVA TNT in 1998, solidified Nvidia's reputation for developing capable graphics adapters. In late 1999, Nvidia released the
GeForce 256
The GeForce 256 is the original release in Nvidia's "GeForce" product-line. Announced on August 31, 1999 and released on October 11, 1999, the GeForce 256 improves on its predecessor (RIVA TNT2) by increasing the number of fixed pixel pipelines ...
(NV10), most notably introducing on-board
transformation and lighting (T&L) to consumer-level 3D hardware. Running at 120 MHz and featuring four-pixel pipelines, it implemented advanced video acceleration, motion compensation, and hardware sub-picture alpha blending. The GeForce outperformed existing products by a wide margin.
Due to the success of its products, Nvidia won the contract to develop the graphics hardware for
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
's
Xbox
Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...
game console, which earned Nvidia a $200 million advance. However, the project took many of its best engineers away from other projects. In the short term this did not matter, and the
GeForce2 GTS shipped in the summer of 2000. In December 2000, Nvidia reached an agreement to acquire the intellectual assets of its one-time rival
3dfx
3dfx Interactive was an American technology company headquartered in San Jose, California, founded in 1994, that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units, and later, video cards. It was a pioneer in the field from the l ...
, a pioneer in consumer 3D graphics technology leading the field from mid 1990s until 2000. The acquisition process was finalized in April 2002.
In July 2002, Nvidia acquired Exluna for an undisclosed sum. Exluna made software-rendering tools and the personnel were merged into the Cg project. In August 2003, Nvidia acquired MediaQ for approximately US$70 million. On April 22, 2004, Nvidia acquired iReady, also a provider of high performance TCP/IP and iSCSI offload solutions. In December 2004, it was announced that Nvidia would assist
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
with the design of the graphics processor (
RSX) in the
PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...
game console. On December 14, 2005, Nvidia acquired
ULI Electronics, which at the time supplied third-party
southbridge parts for
chipset
In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components
An electronic component is any basic discrete device or physical entity in an electronic system used to affect electrons or their associated fields. Electronic components are ...
s to
ATI
Ati or ATI may refer to:
* Ati people, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines
**Ati language (Philippines), the language spoken by this people group
** Ati-Atihan festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines
*Ati language (China), a ...
, Nvidia's competitor. In March 2006, Nvidia acquired
Hybrid Graphics
AMD Hybrid Graphics technology, is a collective brand from AMD for its Radeon line of discrete and integrated GPU, promoting higher performance and productivity while saving energy consumption in GPUs.
The technology previously applied to selec ...
. In December 2006, Nvidia, along with its main rival in the graphics industry AMD (which had acquired ATI), received subpoenas from the
U.S. Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...
regarding possible
antitrust
Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
violations in the graphics card industry.
''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'' named Nvidia its ''Company of the Year'' for 2007, citing the accomplishments it made during the said period as well as during the previous five years. On January 5, 2007, Nvidia announced that it had completed the acquisition of
PortalPlayer
PortalPlayer, founded in 1999, was a fabless semiconductor company that supplied system-on-a-chip semiconductors, firmware and software for personal media players. The company handled semiconductor design and firmware development, while subcontra ...
, Inc. In February 2008, Nvidia acquired
Ageia
Ageia, founded in 2002, was a fabless semiconductor company. In 2004, Ageia acquired NovodeX, the company who created PhysX – a Physics Processing Unit chip capable of performing game physics calculations much faster than general purpose CPUs; ...
, developer of the
PhysX
PhysX is an open-source realtime physics engine middleware SDK developed by Nvidia as a part of Nvidia GameWorks software suite.
Initially, video games supporting PhysX were meant to be accelerated by PhysX PPU (expansion cards designed by Ag ...
physics engine
A physics engine is computer software that provides an approximate simulation of certain physical systems, such as rigid body dynamics (including collision detection), soft body dynamics, and fluid dynamics, of use in the domains of computer gr ...
and
physics processing unit
A physics processing unit (PPU) is a dedicated microprocessor designed to handle the calculations of physics, especially in the physics engine of video games. It is an example of hardware acceleration.
Examples of calculations involving a PPU mig ...
. Nvidia announced that it planned to integrate the PhysX technology into its future GPU products.
In July 2008, Nvidia took a write-down of approximately $200 million on its first-quarter revenue, after reporting that certain mobile chipsets and GPUs produced by the company had "abnormal failure rates" due to manufacturing defects. Nvidia, however, did not reveal the affected products. In September 2008, Nvidia became the subject of a class action lawsuit over the defects, claiming that the faulty GPUs had been incorporated into certain laptop models manufactured by
Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
,
Dell
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
, and
HP. In September 2010, Nvidia reached a settlement, in which it would reimburse owners of the affected laptops for repairs or, in some cases, replacement.
On January 10, 2011, Nvidia signed a six-year, $1.5 billion cross-licensing agreement with Intel, ending all litigation between the two companies.
In November 2011, after initially unveiling it at
Mobile World Congress
MWC Barcelona (formerly but still commonly referred to as Mobile World Congress) is an annual trade show organised by GSMA, dedicated primarily to the mobile communications industry.
The event is held in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain at the Fir ...
, Nvidia released its
Tegra 3
Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics proc ...
ARM
In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between the ...
system-on-a-chip
A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...
for mobile devices. Nvidia claimed that the chip featured the first-ever quad-core mobile CPU.
In May 2011, it was announced that NVIDIA had agreed to acquire
Icera
Icera Inc. is a British Multinational corporation, multinational fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Bristol, United Kingdom, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Nvidia, Nvidia Corporation. It has developed soft modem chipsets for the mobi ...
, a baseband chip making company in the UK, for $367 million. In January 2013, NVIDIA unveiled the
Tegra 4
Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics proc ...
, as well as the
Nvidia Shield
Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
, an
Android-based
handheld game console
A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the cons ...
powered by the new system-on-chip.
On July 29, 2013, Nvidia announced that they acquired
PGI from STMicroelectronics.
In 2014, Nvidia ported Valve games
Portal
Portal often refers to:
* Portal (architecture), an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, or the extremities (ends) of a tunnel
Portal may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Gaming
* ''Portal'' (series), two video games ...
and
Half Life 2 to its Nvidia Shield tablet as Lightspeed Studio. Since 2014, Nvidia has diversified its business focusing on three markets: gaming, automotive electronics, and mobile devices.
On May 6, 2016, Nvidia unveiled the first GPUs of the
GeForce 10 series
The GeForce 10 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, initially based on the Pascal microarchitecture announced in March 2014. This design series succeeded the GeForce 900 series, and is succeeded by the GeForce 16 se ...
, the GTX 1080 and 1070, based on the company's new
Pascal
Pascal, Pascal's or PASCAL may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Pascal (given name), including a list of people with the name
* Pascal (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name
** Blaise Pascal, Fren ...
microarchitecture. Nvidia claimed that both models outperformed its
Maxwell-based Titan X model; the models incorporate
GDDR5
Graphics Double Data Rate 5 Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (GDDR5 SDRAM) is a type of synchronous graphics random-access memory (SGRAM) with a high bandwidth (" double data rate") interface designed for use in graphics cards, game cons ...
X and GDDR5 memory respectively, and use a 16 nm manufacturing process. The architecture also supports a new hardware feature known as simultaneous multi-projection (SMP), which is designed to improve the quality of multi-monitor and
virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...
rendering.
Laptops that include these GPUs and are sufficiently thin – as of late 2017, under – have been designated as meeting NVIDIA's "Max-Q" design standard.
In July 2016, Nvidia agreed to a settlement for a
false advertising
False advertising is defined as the act of publishing, transmitting, or otherwise publicly circulating an advertisement containing a false claim, or statement, made intentionally (or recklessly) to promote the sale of property, goods, or servic ...
lawsuit regarding its
GTX 970
The GeForce 900 series is a family of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, succeeding the GeForce 700 series and serving as the high-end introduction to the Maxwell microarchitecture, named after James Clerk Maxwell. They are produced ...
model, as the models were unable to use all of their advertised 4 GB of RAM due to limitations brought by the design of its hardware. In May 2017, Nvidia announced a partnership with
Toyota
is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...
which will use Nvidia's
Drive PX-series
Nvidia Drive is a computer platform by Nvidia, aimed at providing autonomous car and driver assistance functionality powered by deep learning. The platform was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January 2015. An enhan ...
artificial intelligence platform for its autonomous vehicles. In July 2017, Nvidia and Chinese search giant
Baidu
Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the la ...
announced a far-reaching AI partnership that includes cloud computing, autonomous driving, consumer devices, and Baidu's open-source AI framework PaddlePaddle. Baidu unveiled that Nvidia's Drive PX 2 AI will be the foundation of its autonomous-vehicle platform.
Nvidia officially released the Titan V on December 7, 2017.
Nvidia officially released the Nvidia Quadro GV100 on March 27, 2018. Nvidia officially released the RTX 2080 GPUs on September 27, 2018. In 2018,
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
announced that Nvidia's Tesla P4 graphic cards would be integrated into Google Cloud service's artificial intelligence.
In May 2018, on the Nvidia user forum, a thread was started asking the company to update users when they would release web drivers for its cards installed on legacy
Mac Pro
Mac Pro is a series of workstations and servers for professionals that are designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2006. The Mac Pro, by some performance benchmarks, is the most powerful computer that Apple offers. It is one of f ...
machines up to
mid-2012 5,1 running the
macOS Mojave
macOS Mojave ( ; version 10.14) is the fifteenth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. Mojave was announced at Apple's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Worldwide Devel ...
operating system 10.14.
Web drivers are required to enable graphics acceleration and multiple
display monitor
A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a visual display, support electronics, power supply, housing, electrical connectors, and external user controls.
The d ...
capabilities of the
GPU
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobil ...
. On its Mojave update info website,
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
stated that macOS Mojave would run on legacy machines with
'Metal compatible' graphics cards and listed Metal compatible GPUs, including some manufactured by Nvidia. However, this list did not include Metal compatible cards that currently work in
macOS High Sierra
macOS High Sierra (version 10.13) is the fourteenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. macOS High Sierra was announced at the WWDC 2017 on June 5, 2017 and was released on September 25, 2017. ...
using Nvidia developed web drivers. In September, Nvidia responded, "Apple fully control drivers for Mac OS. But if Apple allows, our engineers are ready and eager to help Apple deliver great drivers for Mac OS 10.14 (Mojave)." In October, Nvidia followed this up with another public announcement, "Apple fully controls drivers for Mac OS. Unfortunately, Nvidia currently cannot release a driver unless it is approved by Apple," suggesting a possible rift between the two companies. By January 2019, with still no sign of the enabling web drivers,
Apple Insider
The Apple community is a group of people interested in Apple Inc. and its products, who report information in various media. Generally this has evolved into a proliferation of websites, but latterly has also expanded into podcasts (both audio and ...
weighed into the controversy with a claim that Apple management "doesn't want Nvidia support in macOS". The following month, Apple Insider followed this up with another claim that Nvidia support was abandoned because of "relational issues in the past", and that Apple was developing its own GPU technology. Without Apple approved Nvidia web drivers, Apple users are faced with replacing their Nvidia cards with a competing supported brand, such as
AMD Radeon
Radeon () is a brand of computer products, including graphics processing units, random-access memory, RAM disk software, and solid-state drives, produced by Radeon Technologies Group, a division of AMD. The brand was launched in 2000 by ATI Tech ...
from the list recommended by Apple.
On March 11, 2019, Nvidia announced a deal to buy
Mellanox Technologies
Mellanox Technologies Ltd. ( he, מלאנוקס טכנולוגיות בע"מ) was an Israeli-American multinational supplier of computer networking products based on InfiniBand and Ethernet technology. Mellanox offered adapters, switches, softwa ...
for $6.9 billion to substantially expand its footprint in the high-performance computing market. In May 2019, Nvidia announced new RTX Studio laptops. The creators say that the new laptop is going to be seven times faster than a top-end MacBook Pro with a Core i9 and AMD's Radeon Pro Vega 20 graphics in apps like
Maya
Maya may refer to:
Civilizations
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...
and RedCine-X Pro. In August 2019, Nvidia announced ''Minecraft RTX'', an official Nvidia-developed patch for the game ''
Minecraft
''Minecraft'' is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before being ...
'' adding real-time DXR ray tracing exclusively to the Windows 10 version of the game. The whole game is, in Nvidia's words, "refit" with path tracing, which dramatically affects the way light, reflections, and shadows work inside the engine.
In May 2020, Nvidia's top scientists developed an
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
ventilator
A ventilator is a piece of medical technology that provides mechanical ventilation by moving breathable air into and out of the lungs, to deliver breaths to a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing insufficiently. Ventilators ...
in order to address the shortage resulting from the global
coronavirus pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...
. On May 14, 2020, Nvidia officially announced their Ampere GPU microarchitecture and the Nvidia A100 GPU accelerator. In July 2020, it was reported that Nvidia was in talks with
SoftBank
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...
to buy
Arm
In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between the ...
, a UK-based chip designer, for $32 billion.
On September 1, 2020, Nvidia officially announced the
GeForce 30 series
The GeForce 30 series is a suite of graphics processing units (GPUs) designed and marketed by Nvidia, succeeding the GeForce 20 series. The GeForce 30 series is based on the Ampere architecture, which feature Nvidia's second-generation ray trac ...
based on the company's new
Ampere
The ampere (, ; symbol: A), often shortened to amp,SI supports only the use of symbols and deprecates the use of abbreviations for units. is the unit of electric current in the International System of Units (SI). One ampere is equal to elect ...
microarchitecture.
On September 13, 2020, it was announced that Nvidia would buy
Arm
In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between the ...
from
SoftBank Group
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...
for $40 billion, subject to the usual scrutiny, with the latter retaining a 10% share of Nvidia.
In October 2020, Nvidia announced its plan to build the most powerful computer in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. Named Cambridge-1, the computer will employ AI to support healthcare research, with an expected completion by the end of 2020, at a cost of approximately £40 million. According to Jensen Huang, "The Cambridge-1 supercomputer will serve as a hub of innovation for the UK, and further the groundbreaking work being done by the nation’s researchers in critical healthcare and drug discovery."
Also in October 2020, along with the release of
Nvidia RTX
Nvidia GeForce RTX (Ray Tracing Texel eXtreme) is a professional visual computing platform created by Nvidia, primarily used for designing complex large-scale models in architecture and product design, scientific visualization, energy exploratio ...
A6000, Nvidia announced it is retiring its workstation GPU brand Quadro, shifting product name to Nvidia RTX for future products and the manufacturing to be
Nvidia Ampere architecture based.
In August 2021, the proposed takeover of Arm Holdings was stalled after the UK's
Competition and Markets Authority
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the competition regulator in United Kingdom. It is a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-com ...
raised "significant competition concerns". In October 2021, the
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
opened a competition investigation into the takeover. The Commission stated that Nvidia's acquisition could restrict competitors' access to Arm's products and provide Nvidia with too much internal information on its competitors due to their deals with Arm.
SoftBank
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...
(the parent company of Arm) and Nvidia announced in early February 2022 that they "had agreed not to move forward with the transaction 'because of significant regulatory challenges'".
The investigation is set to end on March 15, 2022. That same month, Nvidia was reportedly compromised by a cyberattack. The attack coincided with the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...
, though there is no indication that the attack came from Russia or Russian hackers.
In March 2022, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang mentioned that they are open to having Intel manufacture their chips in the future. This was the first time the company mentioned that they would work together with Intel's upcoming foundry services.
In April 2022, it was reported that Nvidia planned to open a new research center in
Yerevan, Armenia
Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...
.
In September 2022, Nvidia announced its next-generation automotive-grade chip,
Drive Thor.
Following
U.S. Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth ...
regulations which placed an
embargo on exports to China of advanced microchips, which went into effect in October 2022, Nvidia saw its data center chip added to the export control list. The next month, the company unveiled a new advanced chip in China, called the A800 GPU, that met the export control rules.
Finances
For the
fiscal year
A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ...
2020, Nvidia reported earnings of US$2.796 billion, with an annual revenue of US$10.918 billion, a decline of 6.8% over the previous fiscal cycle. Nvidia's shares traded at over $531 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$328.7 billion in January 2021.
For the Q2 of 2020, Nvidia reported sales of $3.87 billion, which was a 50% rise from the same period in 2019. The surge in sales and people's higher demand for computer technology. According to the financial chief of the company, Colette Kress, the effects of the pandemic will "likely reflect this evolution in enterprise workforce trends with a greater focus on technologies, such as Nvidia laptops and virtual workstations, that enable remote work and virtual collaboration."
GPU Technology Conference
Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference (GTC), now called
Nvidia GTC
NVIDIA GTC (GPU Technology Conference) is a global AI conference for developers that brings together developers, engineers, researchers, inventors, and IT professionals. Topics focus on artificial intelligence (AI), computer graphics, data scienc ...
, is a series of technical conferences held around the world.
It originated in 2009 in
San Jose, California
San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...
, with an initial focus on the potential for solving computing challenges through GPUs. In recent years, the conference focus has shifted to various applications of artificial intelligence and deep learning, including:
self-driving cars
A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...
, healthcare,
high performance computing
High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems.
Overview
HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a multid ...
, and Nvidia Deep Learning Institute (DLI) training. GTC 2018 attracted over 8400 attendees.
GTC 2020 was converted to a digital event and drew roughly 59,000 registrants.
Product families
![NVIDIA_Shield_Tablet_with_Wireless_Controller_(16131034479)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/NVIDIA_Shield_Tablet_with_Wireless_Controller_%2816131034479%29.jpg)
Nvidia's family includes graphics, wireless communication, PC processors, and automotive hardware/software.
Some families are listed below:
*
GeForce
GeForce is a brand of graphics processing units (GPUs) designed by Nvidia. As of the GeForce 40 series, there have been eighteen iterations of the design. The first GeForce products were discrete GPUs designed for add-on graphics boards, inten ...
, consumer-oriented graphics processing products
*
Nvidia RTX
Nvidia GeForce RTX (Ray Tracing Texel eXtreme) is a professional visual computing platform created by Nvidia, primarily used for designing complex large-scale models in architecture and product design, scientific visualization, energy exploratio ...
, professional visual computing graphics processing products (replacing
Quadro
Quadro was Nvidia's brand for graphics cards intended for use in workstations running professional computer-aided design (CAD), computer-generated imagery (CGI), digital content creation (DCC) applications, scientific calculations and machine l ...
)
*
NVS, multi-display business graphics solution
*
Tegra
Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics proc ...
, a
system on a chip
A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...
series for mobile devices
*
Tesla, dedicated general-purpose GPU for high-end image generation applications in professional and scientific fields
*
nForce
nForce is a motherboard chipset created by Nvidia originally for AMD Athlon and Duron, with later revisions also supporting contemporary Intel processors. The chipset shipped in 3 varieties; 220, 415, and 420. 2 ...
, a motherboard chipset created by Nvidia for Intel (Celeron, Pentium and Core 2) and AMD (Athlon and Duron) microprocessors
* Nvidia GRID, a set of hardware and services by Nvidia for graphics virtualization
* Nvidia Shield, a range of gaming hardware including the
Shield Portable
The Nvidia Shield Portable (Nvidia Shield or NSP) is a handheld game console developed by Nvidia, released on July 31, 2013. The console runs on Android Lollipop 5.1, featuring a flip 130mm (5-inch) touchscreen display with 1280×720 resolutio ...
,
Shield Tablet
The Shield Tablet, later relaunched as the Shield Tablet K1, is a gaming tablet, developed by Nvidia and released on July 29, 2014. It was Nvidia's second portable gaming device that uses Android. Compared to the Shield Portable, the controller ...
and, most recently, the
Shield Android TV
The Nvidia Shield TV (Shield Android TV or just Nvidia Shield) is an Android TV-based digital media player produced by Nvidia as part of its Shield brand of Android devices. First released in May 2015, the Shield was initially marketed by Nvid ...
* Nvidia Drive automotive solutions, a range of hardware and software products for designers and manufacturers of autonomous vehicles. The
Drive PX-series
Nvidia Drive is a computer platform by Nvidia, aimed at providing autonomous car and driver assistance functionality powered by deep learning. The platform was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January 2015. An enhan ...
is a high performance computer platform aimed at autonomous driving through deep learning, while Driveworks is an operating system for
driverless cars.
*
Nvidia BlueField
Nvidia BlueField is a line of data processing units (DPUs) designed and produced by Nvidia. Initially developed by Mellanox Technologies, the BlueField IP was acquired by Nvidia in March 2019, when Nvidia acquired Mellanox Technologies for US$6.9 ...
, a range of
Data Processing Units, initially inherited from their acquisition of
Mellanox Technologies
Mellanox Technologies Ltd. ( he, מלאנוקס טכנולוגיות בע"מ) was an Israeli-American multinational supplier of computer networking products based on InfiniBand and Ethernet technology. Mellanox offered adapters, switches, softwa ...
* Nvidia Datacenter/Server class CPU, codenamed
Nvidia Grace
Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
, coming in 2023.
Open-source software support
Until September 23, 2013, Nvidia had not published any documentation for its advanced hardware, meaning that programmers could not write
free and open-source
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
device driver
In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and ot ...
for its products without resorting to (
clean room
A cleanroom or clean room is an engineered space, which maintains a very low concentration of airborne particulates. It is well isolated, well-controlled from contamination, and actively cleansed. Such rooms are commonly needed for scientif ...
)
reverse engineering
Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...
.
Instead, Nvidia provides its own
binary
Binary may refer to:
Science and technology Mathematics
* Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1)
* Binary function, a function that takes two arguments
* Binary operation, a mathematical operation that t ...
GeForce graphics drivers for
X.Org and an open-source library that interfaces with the
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
,
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...
or
Solaris
Solaris may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film
* ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem
** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg
** ''Solaris'' (1972 film), directed by ...
kernels and the