How Nvidia became the first company in history whose value exceeds US $ 4 billion

“This is a historical moment for Nvidia,” said Wedbush Securities technology analyst.

“They are the only option with their chips, new gold and oil,” he added.

Nvidia's meteoric rise has been surprising. Eight years ago, the company's shares were worth less than 1% of its current price.

Here are 3 keys that explain the success of the technological giant

More than 30 years ago Nvidia began as a company that made chips for video game development.

Its graphics processing units (GPU) began to be highly demanded for the development of visualization functions such as rendering videos, images and animations, ideal for high -demand video games.

This was for a long time the main business of Nvidia.

Soon the firm discovered that its GPUs were also useful for other demanding tasks, such as accelerating computer performance of computers, that is, the central processing units.

Giants such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon were interested in NVIDIA processors to enhance their huge data centers, as did the companies dedicated to the cryptocurrency market.

At the same time, engineers began using their chips to make artificial intelligence calculations, since the type of mathematics necessary to build complex systems fit with the way the graphic chips work.

Today, the most advanced NVIDIA GPUs are used in the creation of the most sophisticated artificial intelligence systems.

As the semiconductors designed for graphics processing were also useful for training artificial intelligence systems, they started a race in that market before the rest and that gave it a valuable advantage over their competitors.

As of 2006, Nvidia made clear his commitment to artificial intelligence. At that time, the company announced the creation of CUDA, a programming language that made it possible for firm chips to solve complex mathematical problems.

This was how the firm entered with its processors in the world of artificial intelligence before its great competitors, such as Intel or AMD.

The great demand of the chips and other products of the firm continues to increase.

Nvidia, which used to be a less known technological firm than the rest of the giants in the sector, quickly went to the foreground with the launch of Chatgpt, an artificial intelligence system developed by the OpenAI company, which uses its processors.

Nvidia chips seem to be, experts say, the most appropriate to train artificial intelligence models.

What is not known is how long these processors will continue to lead the GPU market or if Nvidia's rivals will soon get a good sliced ​​cake.

For now, the balance is in his favor.

Nvidia's escalation has raised the profile of its executive director, Jensen Huang.

So much so, that Mark Zuckerberg called him, at 61, “the Taylor Swift of technology”, which reflects his celebrity status, especially in Taiwan, where his fans treat him as a rock star.

Born in Taipei in 1963, Huang spent part of his childhood in Taiwan and Thailand, until his parents decided to send him with his brother to the United States.

The boys – who did not speak English – were welcomed by some uncles who sent them to study the Oneida Baptist Institute of Kentucky, which by then was more similar to a reformatory than to a normal school.

According to a newsletter published by that school in 2016, both brothers were allowed to live, eat and work in that institution -which only offered high school classes -while attending classes at the Oneida Elementary School.

The work assigned to Jensen was to wash the bathrooms. Despite the difficulties, Huang has always argued that it was a great experience and that he enjoyed his time there.

In fact, in 2016, he and his wife, Lori, donated US $ 2 million for the construction of a building with classrooms and bedrooms for girls in that educational center.

A few years later, the boys moved to Oregon to meet with their parents when they emigrated to the United States.

Huang attended the State University of Oregon to study electrical engineering.

He says that it was there that he opened his eyes to “the magic behind” of computers. And it was also there that the “luck” led him to meet his wife, Lori, who was his laboratory practicing partner.

In a talk that offered students from that university in 2013, Huang highlighted how he had also met the two co -founders of Nvidia, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem.

Huang graduated as an engineer in 1984. “A perfect year to graduate,” as he said, because it was the same year in which the era of personal computers began with the exit to the market of the first Mac.

Then he studied Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, who took him eight years to complete.

In parallel, he was working on different roles in technology companies such as Advanced Micro Deviced (AMD) and LSI Logic, who abandoned shortly before co -founding Nvidia.

From then on, he has led the technological giant who has just become the first company with a value greater than US $ 4 billion.

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