The Nvidia Story: How Nvidia Became the Most Valuable Company in the world

While other companies with capitalizations greater than $3 billion, Apple and Microsoft are popular with consumers and highly valued, Nvidia has long been somewhere in the background. For video game and PC enthusiasts, Nvidia has long been the most popular and dominant GPU manufacturer in the world. In fact, this is where Nvidia's journey began.

The founding of Nvidia and the first steps to success

In the early 1990s, when computing was just beginning to enter the public consciousness, Nvidia's founders - Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowski and Curtis Prim - envisioned that video games would become the largest source of revenue among computer applications. At the time, increasingly complex and visually appealing games required computers capable of performing massive calculations at high speeds. Jensen Huang realized that this required special graphics processing units (GPUs) running in parallel with central processing units (CPUs).

Birth, first products and market conquest

Nvidia was founded in 1993, when computing was just beginning to enter the public consciousness, Nvidia founders Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowski, and Curtis Prim foresaw one important detail about the future of computing. Already popular at the time, video games would become the largest source of revenue among computer applications, and increasingly complex and visually appealing video games required computers capable of performing massive calculations at extremely high speeds.

Until now, this task had been handled by the computer's CPU, but Jensen Huang and his collaborators realized that this task could be done more efficiently with a dedicated GPU running in parallel with the CPU.The company's first product, the NV1, was not a success, but the RIVA 128 graphics gas pedal released in 1996 was a breakthrough. This success strengthened Nvidia's position in the market. In 1999, the company introduced the GeForce 256, the world's first full-fledged graphics processor. From that moment on, Nvidia began to actively increase its influence in the gaming industry, offering more and more high-performance solutions.

Technological breakthroughs and innovations

In 1999, the company released a product, the name of which is familiar to gamers to this day. The GeForce 256 was Nvidia's first true GPU, and the GeForce name has survived to this day. Throughout the 2000s, Nvidia became increasingly successful, absorbing most of its competitors and becoming a member of the S&P 500, an American stock index that includes only the country's 500 largest companies. At the time, Nvidia was one of the few companies making consumer graphics processors, along with AMD, another U.S. chipmaker. Nvidia makes GPUs for Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox consoles. The company invests heavily in research and development, constantly improving its technology and taking video game technology to new heights.

In 2006, Nvidia introduced the CUDA architecture, which allowed GPUs to be used for complex computational tasks, a key step towards the development of artificial intelligence. In 2016, the GTX 1080 and 1070 series solidified the company's dominance in the gaming industry. The RTX 2000, 3000 and 4000 series, which support ray tracing technology, became the new standard for graphics solutions.

Artificial Intelligence, Cryptocurrencies and COVID

When the value of cryptocurrencies began to skyrocket during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nvidia GPUs became the primary tool used by miners to perform the computational tasks required to mine bitcoins, so Nvidia's sales skyrocketed. Soon after, the Large Language Model (LLM) emerged, bringing the power of artificial intelligence into the public spotlight, and every technology company in the world began developing their own AI products. Nvidia GPUs that could help them in this process were in high demand.

Nvidia was ready for it. The GV100, followed by the A100 and later models, became focused on AI data centers, where GPUs process massive amounts of data, connecting it to the complex matrix calculations that are the building blocks of today's AI models. The advancement of artificial intelligence and competition among other tech giants to be first in the AI race is beneficial for Nvidia, which not only develops its own AI products but also provides tools for building machine learning models.

Financial successes and records in 2024

In the third quarter of 2024, Nvidia recorded record revenue of $35.08 billion, up 94% year-on-year. Net income totaled $19.31 billion, up 109%. The main growth driver was the data center segment, which brought in $30.8 billion in revenue. Nvidia announced the release of its new Blackwell chip, with demand expected to exceed supply through 2026.

By the end of 2024, Nvidia continued to expand its footprint. The company invested heavily in developing new architectures for artificial intelligence and cloud computing. In December 2024, Nvidia announced strategic partnerships with several major cloud providers to integrate solutions based on the Hopper architecture.

Nvidia's leadership in 2025

Nvidia has a market capitalization of more than $3.2 trillion as of early 2025 and is well positioned to lead the high-performance computing and artificial intelligence industry. Despite the challenges of a limited supply of new systems, Nvidia expects to continue to grow revenue and strengthen its position in the global market. Jensen Huang continues to lead the company forward with confidence, reinforcing Nvidia's position as a technology leader poised to shape the future of the industry.

The Future of Nvidia

Nvidia's steady growth and leadership in artificial intelligence and cloud technologies provide a strong foundation for long-term investments. Strong demand for the company's AI and data center solutions suggests continued financial growth. Nvidia remains one of the most promising companies for investors due to its strong innovation strategy and solid market position.