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.



Main Topics Covered




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




Links & Resources for This Episode




YouTube Video: Quick Tour of NVIDIA DGX H100



YouTube Video: Inside the Modern Data Center! SuperClusters at Applied Digital



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Chapters
(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

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