NVIDIA Corporation, also known as NVIDIA, is an American global technology company that manufactures graphics processors, mobile technologies, and desktop computers. The company is renowned for creating integrated circuits that are utilized in everything from personal computers to video game consoles. The business is a top producer of advanced graphics processing units (GPUs). The headquarters of NVIDIA is in Santa Clara, California.
NVIDIA established itself as a prominent player in the computer gaming sector, with the RIVA series of graphics processors in 1997. The business rose to prominence two years later, with the advent of the GeForce 256 GPU, which provided improved three-dimensional graphics quality.
The company battled with prominent video card maker 3dfx Interactive, pitting the GeForce against 3dfx Interactive’s popular Voodoo technologies. NVIDIA’s GeForce proved to be more powerful and later in the year 2000, the company acquired assets of 3dfx Interactive. NVIDIA was chosen by Microsoft Corporation to create graphics cards for its eagerly anticipated Xbox video game console that same year. The company received the Forbes Magazine’s 2007 Business of the Year award in recognition of its explosive growth and achievement.
NVIDIA offers a wide range of computing technologies, the Quadro series of video cards for professional graphics, the Tegra series for mobile phone processors, the nForce series for multimedia functions, and the Tesla series for high-end business and scientific-research computers. These products are in addition to those for the computer gaming industry.
NVIDIA, which is considered the best in the graphics segment to date, was co-founded by a 60-year-old, Taiwanese American electrical engineer Jensen Huang on his 30th birthday in 1993. He is currently the President and CEO of the company.
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Who is Jensen Huang?
- Jensen Huang was born in Taiwan and when he was nine years old his family immigrated to the United States
- He completed his graduation degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University in 1984 and his master’s from Stanford University in 1992
- In 1993, Jensen Huang co-founded NVIDIA with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem
- His company went public in 1999, where he owned 3.6% of NVIDIA stock
- In 1999, Jensen Huang was named ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ in ‘High Technology’ by Ernst & Young
- In 2003, he received the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award, a pioneer recognition from the field of the semiconductor industry, given by the Fabless Semiconductor Association
- Jensen Huang was also a National Finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2003 and was an Award Recipient for the Northern California region in 1999
- In 2007, Forbes ranked him as the 61st highest-paid US CEO, he earned USD 24.6 million that year
- In the same year, Jensen Huang also won the Silicon Valley Education Foundation’s Pioneer Business Leader Award for his work in both the corporate and philanthropic worlds
- In 2018, he was listed in the inaugural Edge 50, naming the world’s top 50 influencers in edge computing
- In October 2019, Harvard Business Review named him the best-performing CEO in the world
- In 2020, Jensen Huang was named ‘Supplier CEO of the year’ by Eurostars AutomotiveNewsEurope
- He was included in the Time 100, Time’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021
- In August of that year, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced Huang as the 2021 recipient of the industry’s highest honour, the Robert N. Noyce Award
- According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as of January 2023, Jensen Huang’s net worth is USD 16.3 billion
- Jensen Huang is also known for his charities. In 2022, he donated USD 50 million to his alma mater, Oregon State University, as a part of a USD 200 million donation towards the creation of a supercomputing institute on campus
- He also gave his other alma mater Stanford University USD 30 million to build the Jen-Hsun Huang School of Engineering Center
NVIDIA’s Financials
In November 2022, NVIDIA released its financial data for Q3 of its 2022 fiscal year (FY), the net income for the quarter was USD 2.5 billion, increasing 84.4% over the same period in 2021. Sales reached a record high of USD 7.1 billion, up by 50.3%. Operating income, which NVIDIA uses as a performance indicator for each of its business sectors, also increased by 91.1% to USD 2.7 billion.
The semiconductor firm publishes a revenue breakdown for each of its five key markets, which include gaming, data centres, professional visualisation, automotive, original equipment manufacturers (OEM), and others: Gaming revenue, which made up 45% of total revenue, increased by 41.8% in the third quarter. Data centre revenue, which made up 41% of total revenue, increased by 54.5% and its professional visualisation revenue also jumped by 144.5%.
The COVID-19 pandemic has improved the financial performance of NVIDIA, with the company now facing massive demand for its gaming, data centre, and professional visualisation market platforms.
Jensen Huang stated that as more businesses adopt the technology and boost their use of hyperscale and cloud computing, the demand for its artificial intelligence solutions will grow.
NVIDIA’s Recent Developments
In February 2022, NVIDIA cancelled its agreement to acquire UK-based semiconductor firm Arm Limited, backed by SoftBank Group. The USD 40 billion arrangement, first announced in September 2020, faced significant regulatory challenges in the United Kingdom.
In January 2022, the company stated that Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook, would use its technology to create its artificial intelligence Research SuperCluster (RSC). This artificial intelligence supercomputer is expected to be the largest customer installation of NVIDIA DGX A100 systems.
