NVIDIA - THE NEW FACE OF COMPUTING
Computer technology has witnessed a number of moments of transformation. The invention of the IBM PC, the rise of the Windows Operating System and Intel processors ushered in a new era of personal computing and ensured that every average home and office had the opportunity of tapping into the vast possibilities of the Personal Computer. As the world was trying to grasp the full potentials of these amazing innovations, Sir Tim Berners-Lee ushered in the most transformative innovation in the history of mankind with his invention of the World Wide Web. The Web with its endless possibilities and immeasurable potentials, created new industries, transformed existing ones and changed the way we work, play and connect. To complete the chain of technology as we have it today, were the invention of the iPhone, the rise of Cloud Computing, IoT and the rise of Holographic Computing.
Today, we are surrounded with different gadgets and have at our disposal, many services which have made computing more personal than ever before.
But behind the scenes of smartphones, virtual and mixed reality devices, PCs and cloud computing, GPU(Graphics Processing Unit) technologies have become the new face of computing, that’s going to transform computer technology as we know it today.
NVIDIA, a company established in 1993 by two former Sun Microsystems Engineers and a former Engineer at AMD, developed high end Graphics Processing Units that is used in PCs and Smartphones to render high end games. However, for many decades, only games were able to take advantage of the immense processing power of the GPUs. GPUs continued to advance far beyond the processing capabilities of traditional CPUs, enabling computations at speeds nearing supercomputer speeds. However, due to their Architecture, only Graphics intensive applications were able to take advantage of their processing powers. But this all changed in the early 2000 when Ian Buck, a Stanford University student doing his PHD Thesis came up with a ground breaking research that gave access to all computer programmers to easily take full advantage of the massive parallel processing capabilities of the GPU. Ian Buck joined NVIDIA in 2004 and developed the CUDA framework for general purpose GPU computing. As a result, the use of the GPU for scientific computing expanded.
Few years after, artificial intelligence systems became more useful for very advanced tasks as they tapped into the GPU to perform very difficult tasks at incredible speeds. As of today, Artificial Intelligence research relies heavily on the GPU. Cloud Computing services and applications are increasingly adopting the use of GPUs to enable faster cloud computing and scale without performance degradation.
This great improvements in Artificial Intelligence and Cloud computing enabled by general purpose GPU computing has ushered in a new wave of devices and services that’s changed for better the way we live and the ways we work. In the home, Amazon Alexa is making life more convenient, enabling people to control devices in their home with their voice. On smartphones, AI assistants like the Google Assistant, Cortana, Hound and Siri have made interacting with our phones more seamless than ever. Car automation has made driverless cars a reality. In the enterprise, AI is unlocking new levels of productivity never seen before through predictive maintenance, factory automation, data driven customer understanding and customer support via bots.
Supercomputers are also becoming more powerful and energy efficient than ever before, thanks to the NVIDIA GPUs which have become an integral part of modern day supercomputers. A notable example of this is the Titan supercomputer using NVIDIA Tesla K20 GPUs and AMD Operon to achieve a remarkable speed of 17.59 Peta flops.
Today, NVIDIA’s GPUs is accelerating the development of driverless cars, AI assistants and devices from IoT to powerful supercomputers.
NVIDIA through its innovative technologies has helped to make modern computing what it is today, and the company keeps innovating with blazing fast smartphone processors, car automation systems and more powerful GPUs.
Other GPU makers such as AMD has also followed in NVIDIA’S footsteps by opening the GPU to general purpose computing via the OpenCL and OpenACC interfaces.
It’s no doubt anymore that at the heart of every modern computer innovation, from personal devices to cloud computing, artificial intelligence and supercomputers, GPUs are accelerating the pace of technology.
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| The IPhone was introduced in 2007 as the World's first multi-touch phone |
Today, we are surrounded with different gadgets and have at our disposal, many services which have made computing more personal than ever before.
But behind the scenes of smartphones, virtual and mixed reality devices, PCs and cloud computing, GPU(Graphics Processing Unit) technologies have become the new face of computing, that’s going to transform computer technology as we know it today.
 |
| Holographic Devices like the Hololens render High Quality Graphics using GPUs |
NVIDIA, a company established in 1993 by two former Sun Microsystems Engineers and a former Engineer at AMD, developed high end Graphics Processing Units that is used in PCs and Smartphones to render high end games. However, for many decades, only games were able to take advantage of the immense processing power of the GPUs. GPUs continued to advance far beyond the processing capabilities of traditional CPUs, enabling computations at speeds nearing supercomputer speeds. However, due to their Architecture, only Graphics intensive applications were able to take advantage of their processing powers. But this all changed in the early 2000 when Ian Buck, a Stanford University student doing his PHD Thesis came up with a ground breaking research that gave access to all computer programmers to easily take full advantage of the massive parallel processing capabilities of the GPU. Ian Buck joined NVIDIA in 2004 and developed the CUDA framework for general purpose GPU computing. As a result, the use of the GPU for scientific computing expanded.
Few years after, artificial intelligence systems became more useful for very advanced tasks as they tapped into the GPU to perform very difficult tasks at incredible speeds. As of today, Artificial Intelligence research relies heavily on the GPU. Cloud Computing services and applications are increasingly adopting the use of GPUs to enable faster cloud computing and scale without performance degradation.
 |
| Ian Buck Pioneered the Era of General Purpose GPU Computing |
This great improvements in Artificial Intelligence and Cloud computing enabled by general purpose GPU computing has ushered in a new wave of devices and services that’s changed for better the way we live and the ways we work. In the home, Amazon Alexa is making life more convenient, enabling people to control devices in their home with their voice. On smartphones, AI assistants like the Google Assistant, Cortana, Hound and Siri have made interacting with our phones more seamless than ever. Car automation has made driverless cars a reality. In the enterprise, AI is unlocking new levels of productivity never seen before through predictive maintenance, factory automation, data driven customer understanding and customer support via bots.
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| Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of NVIDIA |
Supercomputers are also becoming more powerful and energy efficient than ever before, thanks to the NVIDIA GPUs which have become an integral part of modern day supercomputers. A notable example of this is the Titan supercomputer using NVIDIA Tesla K20 GPUs and AMD Operon to achieve a remarkable speed of 17.59 Peta flops.
Today, NVIDIA’s GPUs is accelerating the development of driverless cars, AI assistants and devices from IoT to powerful supercomputers.
 |
| The Titan Cray Super Computer |
NVIDIA through its innovative technologies has helped to make modern computing what it is today, and the company keeps innovating with blazing fast smartphone processors, car automation systems and more powerful GPUs.
Other GPU makers such as AMD has also followed in NVIDIA’S footsteps by opening the GPU to general purpose computing via the OpenCL and OpenACC interfaces.
It’s no doubt anymore that at the heart of every modern computer innovation, from personal devices to cloud computing, artificial intelligence and supercomputers, GPUs are accelerating the pace of technology.
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