Nvidia and have exploded on the market over the past year, as the AI craze — and to — brought a special sparkle to investors’ eyes. At the same time, . But unlike companies in the dot-com era, Nvidia is supported by strong business fundamentals — the company over 2023 — that have . had humble beginnings. Its worked as a dishwasher to make money during his teenage years, and the company almost went bankrupt in its first two years. Now Nvidia stock is up a whopping 87% so far in 2024, 223% over the last 12 months, 1,793% over the last five years. Let’s take a look at Nvidia’s rise from it’s start at a Denny’s restaurant to the third-most valuable company on earth. 2 / 9 1993: Nvidia starts with pancakes 1993: Nvidia starts with pancakes Jensen Huang and his
Friends, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, — the chain where Huang worked as a dishwasher during his teenage years. Nvidia doesn’t have a name when it first launches, but its founders later settle on the Latin word for “envy” — invidia — without the “i.” 3 / 9 1995: From first chip to first crash 1995: From first chip to first crash and launches its first chip, the NV1. It’s a to support multimedia features in gaming. to develop the chip from Sequoia Capital and Sutter Hill Ventures, but the product isn’t popular. The company amid the challenges. 4 / 9 1997: Nvidia ups its game 1997: Nvidia ups its game Nvidia , which stands for “Real-time Interactive Video and Animation,” a successor to the NV1. The chip helps put Nvidia on the map and achieve widespread popularity. “This proved to be the landmark card that Nvidia had been looking for since 1993,” of the RIVA 128. 5 / 9 2007: Getting some recognition 2007: Getting some recognition By 2007, since its IPO, with profits climbing 50% annually. That success gains Nvidia a lot of attention — so much so that it’s . At the time, Nvidia remains , manufacturing graphics cards for the PlayStation 3. 6 / 9 2012: Modern AI cometh 2012: Modern AI cometh that, by 2011, “AI researchers around the world had discovered NVIDIA GPUs.” (GPUs are graphics processing units, the advanced chips that power the large language models behind AI chatbots like ChatGPT.) In 2012, that statement becomes even more true. A graduate student at the University of
Toronto, Alex Krizhevsky, that , catching the attention of tech giants like
Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. The development in AI “deep learning” sets the stage for modern, generative
Artificial intelligence technology. 7 / 9 2020: A new kind of GPU 2020: A new kind of GPU Nvidia announces its A100 GPU, up to 20 times compared to its older GPUs. Nvidia calls it “the company’s largest leap in performance to date.”
Microsoft Azure,
Amazon Web Services,
Google Cloud and other cloud providers go on to . 8 / 9 Today: Growth and more growth Today: Growth and more growth By the end of 2023, using its GPUs for AI computing. Its chips are used by both Big Tech firms and governments across the world. The company’s stock begins its huge rally in 2023, which continues into 2024 — putting Nvidia at the tippity-top of the so-called . In February of 2024, , 270% higher than in the prior year. And in March, , , named after mathematician David Blackwell, the first Black scholar inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. 9 / 9