Nvidia

Nvidia is the chip company people now look to for graphics processors, AI accelerators, and the software stack around CUDA. By our assessment, that combination makes it unusually strong in the parts of computing that need massive parallel work, from gaming to data centres and machine learning. The obvious downside is dependence on a very hot market: demand for its chips can be fierce, but the products are also expensive and tied to a fast-moving ecosystem. In practice Nvidia feels less like a single product maker and more like the centre of a platform, because the hardware and software keep pulling customers back in. It sits above most other GPU names in reputation and influence, and that is exactly why it gets watched so closely.