To Compete With New Rivals, Chipmaker Nvidia Shares Its Secrets

Five years ago, Nvidia was best known as a maker of chips to power videogame graphics in PCs. Then researchers found its graphics chips were also good at powering deep learning, the software technique behind recent enthusiasm for artificial intelligence. The discovery made Nvidia into the preferred seller of shovels for the AI gold rush that's propelling dreams of self-driving cars, delivery drones and software that plays doctor. The company's stock-market value has risen 10-fold in three years, to more than $100 billion. That's made Nvidia and the market it more-or-less stumbled into an attractive target.