Nvidia, one of the leading semiconductor companies on Earth, is now rapidly moving beyond the PC graphics processors it dominates. Where to? Try Mars.
The chipmaker developed one of the key technological advances used in the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. An Nvidia-designed graphics system assembled at NASA's control centre collects the thousands of points of terrain data the Rover gathers every minute and assembles them into a 3D representation of the Martian landscape.
The NASA project isn't just a matter of prestige, either. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang sees practical applications in the near future. "Taking telemetry of thousands of points, synthesising a 3D environment and presenting it in front of you -- that's no different than the 3D display in your car 15 years from now," he said. "Imagine driving your car down the street in total darkness, total fog, and you can still see absolutely everything in that environment."
In the here and now, Huang runs a company that, in the course of a decade, has gone from a scrappy start-up to the dominant force in PC graphics. It is now rapidly moving into other markets. CNET News.com caught up with Huang at the International Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month.
Q: How has the role of the PC graphics chip changed since Nvidia entered the market? It seems like it's come much closer to being an equal partner with the microprocessor.
A: The graphics processor has become more and more relevant over the years, because the applications that are being used in computing are more rich in graphics. It's less about processing your spreadsheet or word processor. It's much more about video and rich graphics and 3D graphics and games and movies -- all these heavyweight digital-media applications. Processing demand has increased dramatically, and it has to do with where applications are moving and how people are using computers.
3D graphics obviously have a long way to go before we reach a level consumers would say is absolutely good enough. From that angle, it's true that GPUs (graphics processing units) will continue to advance at a very rapid pace.
Another perspective focuses on the GPU's accelerating programmability, which makes it a very good processing element for a particular type of very mathematically intensive function. Longhorn, the next-generation operating system from Microsoft, will elevate the GPU and expose much more of its fundamental processing capabilities.
Talkback
Nvidia is a great company and has earned its place among the leading graphics hardware companies.
I do feel however, that naming Nvidia the "dominant force in PC graphics" might be a little extreme.
Here in Canada, we have a company called ATI Technologies that has always been a leader in this field and has, over the last few quarters, displaced Nvidia as the world's largest graphic chip supplier. They have also won away from Nvidia, the title of the world's fastest graphics chip-set for PC games, and the contract to supply graphics technology for Microsoft's next generation X-box.
By these measures, if there is a dominant force in PC graphics, it's ATI, not Nvidia.
BTW, the special super-high resolution image sensors that are the front-end for the Mars rovers' fancy graphics were fabricated in Canada by a firm just outside Montreal.