Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is a company that specializes in graphics processing units (GPUs) which are used for computationally expensive floating point math. In 2005, Nvidia began developing software to allow GPUs to be used for more than just graphics. In 2012, their software was used to create the first successful image recognition AI, AlexNet, and since then Nvidia has become the default for AI research. They have two types of GPUs, PC and data center, with the latter costing up to $40,000 and having a 75% gross margin. Nvidia GPUs and software have also enabled exponential growth in model size since 2012.
