Ep. 18: WTF is NVIDIA?

In this episode I break down what NVIDIA is, why its GPUs (hint: these are the “chips” you hear so much about) became the backbone of the modern AI boom, and how CUDA locked in its dominance. The conversation moves from gaming history to trillion-dollar valuations and data centers stacked with H100s, offering a clear picture of why nearly every major AI system runs on NVIDIA hardware.

• What NVIDIA is
• NVIDIA’s role in the AI economy
• Founding story and naming
• Early GPUs and the GeForce 256 
• Researchers linking GPU math to AI math
• CUDA and the 2012 AlexNet breakthrough
• NVIDIA vs Google TPUs
• H100 chips and DGX Systems
• CUDA lock-In and why NVIDIA likely won’t be dethroned
• Recent ChatGPT use: Chris McCausland using AI to describe images

• YouTube Video: Quick Tour of NVIDIA DGX H100
• YouTube Video: Inside the Modern Data Center! SuperClusters at Applied Digital
• Watch Chris’ Reel
• Read this episode's Curious Companion
• Subscribe to the Prompting Curiosity Newsletter
• Submit a Question
• Visit the Website
• Feeling curious AND generous? Click here to support the podcast.

• (00:00:00) - ChatGPT Curious
• (00:00:38) - Cuda
• (00:02:27) - Nvidia: The Magnificent 7
• (00:03:58) - Are We In An AI Bubble?
• (00:04:56) - What is Nvidia and Why Are They So Big?
• (00:11:19) - Nvidia: The AI Big Deal
• (00:16:20) - Nvidia's $5.1 trillion valuation
• (00:18:18) - A Few Things to Know About Nvidia
• (00:19:32) - A Cool Use Case For AI
• (00:21:27) - The Curious Companion