Nvidia's rapid development of GPUs is forcing computing to depart from something called Moore's law

Moore's Law came from observing exponential computing growth in the 1960s

In 1965, Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel Corporation, observed a four-year trend of constant growth rate in computing power. Hypothesizing the trend would continue, his observation became the benchmark that the computing industry has worked to maintain for 60 years.

Nvidia entered its AI era after learning that its chips could be used in industries beyond gaming

Its semiconductor chips were used in the automotive industry, for data centers, and by crypto miners. And starting in 2006, Nvidia took steps that would ultimately transform it into the AI company it’s known as today. This podcast is the second part of a three-part series diving deep into Nvidia’s company evolution.

Nvidia was founded in a Denny's restaurant

Nvidia is one of a handful of companies valued at more than $1T. In its early days, the semiconductor company sold GPUs, or graphics processing units, that were used for video games. But in recent years, Nvidia’s chips have been used for crypto and AI. Nvidia has faced several setbacks on its journey, including when the US sanctioned chip exports to China.

Nvidia's attempted Arm acquisition revealed its hopes of becoming the world's leading AI company

Though Nvidia's acquisition of Arm, another company that designs semiconductors, was ultimately quashed over antitrust concerns, the attempt offered insights into Nvidia's business strategy. Over time, Nvidia has increasingly focused on using its graphics cards to power machine learning, and its platform CUDA is dominant in the sector.

Nvidia controls more than four-fifths of the GPU market—but isn't considered a monopoly

Semiconductor company Nvidia has a commanding market share when it comes to graphics processing units. Its competitors include Advanced Micro Devices and Intel, which together account for less than a fifth of the GPU market.

CUDA was Nvidia’s first step into artificial intelligence

CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a parallel computing platform that was developed by Nvidia in the mid-2000s. By letting people perform computations in parallel, rather than sequentially, CUDA allowed people to compute large amounts of data quickly. CUDA has been used to build machine-learning models as well.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s keynotes have become a main event at CES

Watch Jensen Huang’s 2025 CES keynote, where he unveiled major advances in AI and GPU technology. His presentations now draw global attention, blending product reveals with sweeping visions of the future of computing.

Nvidia’s RTX graphics chips support ray tracing, which, the company says, can boost performance in games by 25%

Ray tracing allows developers to add more realistic-looking lighting and shadows to video games, and Nvidia continues to improve the tech in newer chips. Rendering light realistically in video games requires immense computing power, and ray tracing “cheats” the process with a little guesswork.

AI data center growth has created shortages and price hikes in computer parts

The parallel processing needed to power large language models for AI chatbots and other tools drove demand for high-speed graphics processing units to spike in 2025, enabling capital-rich technology companies to price out consumers. Similar demands for the computer memory used in storage drives are expected to keep shortages from easing through 2028.

NVIDIA named several computer chip architectures after Grace Hopper

Unveiled in 2023, the GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip, designed for generative AI applications in data center-scale systems, combines a Grace CPU with a Hopper GPU to create a coherent memory model. This allows the Hopper to access Grace data directly, reducing the need to repeatedly copy data back and forth and vastly improving performance.

Rival companies AMD and Nvidia's CEOs are related

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Nvidia are two of the world's largest manufacturers of processing chips and are fierce competitors. AMD's CEO Lisa Su and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang are actually first cousins once removed, but reportedly don't share a close relationship and didn't even meet until later in life at an industry event.

Tour Brother Zhang's repair shop to see how graphics processing units are fixed

The workshop repairs 40 to 50 GPUs from across China daily, extending the life of the costly computer parts that are the lifeblood of the hardware powering AI tools. By salvaging working components of different GPUs, custom parts can be built atop printed circuit boards, including custom GPUs that manufacturers do not currently produce.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Hear what Michael Burry thinks about the possibility of an AI bubble

Since his success shorting subprime mortgage-backed securities in 2008, Burry's positions have often become influential, sparking conversations on platforms like X. In 2025, Burry drew attention for betting against Nvidia and Palantir for being overvalued companies.

How 5G will transform media and gaming experiences

The latest generation of cellular mobile communication, known as 5G, promises speeds up to 100 times faster than 4G. Intel's Asha Keddy talk to MarketWatch about how this will transform media consumption and gaming experiences.

The virtual reality era has finally arrived

The smartphone era has driven a large share of the consumer electronics market for almost 20 years now. But what comes next? Dominant computing platforms come and go over time, and there’s reason to believe that mixed reality devices like headsets and glasses might be the form factor that eventually replaces smartphones. This article presents a snapshot of where we are right now in the VR era, and what the future holds.

The world's first commercial biological computer combines neurons with silicon

Australian start-up Cortical Labs unveiled CL1, a hybrid chip designed to help scientists study brain function in real-time. The 800,000 lab-grown neurons on the chip are kept viable for six months via a built-in life support system.

Quantum computers can simulate nature more effectively than classical computers

Ordinary computers struggle to simulate quantum fields due to entanglement, but systems built from those elements can model the complexity. Systems using particle in more than two states—qudits—have successfully modeled 2D electromagnetic fields and done so more efficiently.

The ease of deepfakes creation may soon overwhelm our sense of digital truth

Shortly after the public release of related technology in 2017, some experts saw the technical limitations of deepfakes as preventing them from becoming widespread tools of disinformation. Since then, the neural networks behind diffusion models and generative AI have eliminated the barriers to creating convincing synthetic media for propaganda.

Malware has transitioned from notoriety-driven to profit- and data-driven

Many of the first researchers and hobbyists who created viruses and worms showed a natural curiosity in experimenting with and designing such software to make a name for themselves and advance the field of computer science. In the future, AI-augmented malware may adapt in real-time or design enhanced cryptojackers, infostealers, and ransomware for cybercriminals.

Tech giants like SpaceX and Meta are increasingly behaving like sovereign powers

Companies now make unilateral decisions once reserved for nation-states, such as controlling satellite internet access in active war zones and influencing global information flows. Lawmakers and the international order are struggling to keep up with technological developments, let alone regulate them.

Implanted neurotechnology can leave users vulnerable when manufacturers go under

Despite providing relief from neurological conditions, patients are left stranded when the companies that make these devices shut down. The lack of regulation means patients often face technical failure, insurance battles, or risky surgeries to maintain their quality of life.

Worth more than $14T, Silicon Valley may be getting too expensive for future founders

Silicon Valley, the 1,800-square-mile hub of tech innovation, reached more than $14T in market value in 2024. Home to industry giants like Apple and Adobe, its influence is undeniable. But rising costs and corporate relocations raise questions about its future.

Cryptocurrency is reshaping finance, but its environmental impact often sparks debate

Behind the scenes, mining operations consume vast amounts of energy, comparable to the emissions of small nations. What drives this surprising environmental footprint, and can the industry evolve?

NASA fixed Voyager 1’s glitchy memory from 24 billion kilometers away

In November 2023, Voyager 1 began sending unusable data due to a stuck bit in a decades-old memory chip. After months of investigation, engineers managed to reroute the faulty code to a new memory location, restoring functionality in April 2024.

Lasers help build the layers of circuit components in microchips

During the photolithography process, light is projected through a blueprint onto a light-sensitive chemical layer on silicon wafers, etching patterns that become transistors through a series of successive reactions. These processes require significant electricity, as only about 2% of photons reach the wafer.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

Poison ivy will likely become both larger and more resilient due to climate change.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

The 2026 Ebola outbreak is hampered by a lack of vaccine against the species of the virus, heightening the need for rapid tests to aid in disease control.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.