To keep up its freakish growth, Nvidia needs to convince the world it's a leader in AI

Investors have smiled on Nvidia's efforts to capitalize on the burgeoning market for artificial-intelligence supercomputers and affordable graphics processor units: Following 220% growth last year, the company's stock is currently hovering at an all-time high. Nvidia's challenge now is to sustain that momentum, especially as competitors like AMD and Intel make significant advances. Analysts say the key is for Nvidia to maintain focus on its two biggest growth areas: artificial intelligence and self-driving cars. The recent artificial-intelligence boom couldn't have been better for Nvidia: Starting in the late 2000s, AI researchers discovered that GPUs were perfect for their massively complex deep-learning algorithms, initially providing up to 70x (pdf) better performance than traditional CPUs. Nvidia obliged the community, building a set of tools to make running those algorithms even easier and faster.