--- description: Find out why Nvidia was selected for the inaugural list title: TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2021: Nvidia image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt859669b71e9f315e/698a190922fb857e5ee2c200/nvidia-time100-companies-1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 26, 2021 # Nvidia Developing critical chips by [Eben Shapiro](/author/eben-shapiro/) ## Eben Shapiro Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Eben Shapiro is the former deputy editor of TIME  Jensen Huang is co-founder, President and CEO of Nvidia Jensen Huang is co-founder, President and CEO of NvidiaPatrick T. Fallon—Bloomberg/Getty Images A confluence of divergent, powerful trends have combined to make Nvidia the most valuable U.S. semiconductor company. Long a leader in making essential graphics chips for video games, it saw a 61% jump in revenue in its latest quarter, powered by the pandemic-fueled explosion of gaming. The Santa Clara, Calif.–based company also got a boost from surging interest in cryptocurrency as investors bought powerful Nvidia chips to help “mine” digital currencies. Now the company is emerging as a key player in super-computing and AI, resulting in perhaps the most significant use of the company’s chips: in October, [Nvidia](https://time.com/5955412/artificial-intelligence-nvidia-jensen-huang/ "undefined") unveiled a partnership with drug giant GSK to team up on using AI-powered computation to speed the drug and vaccine discovery process. In January, it struck a deal with Chinese EV maker NIO to supply chips to develop autonomous vehicles. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-companies/5953614/nvidia/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-companies/5953614/nvidia/"},"headline":"Nvidia","datePublished":"2021-04-26T20:27:45.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:49:09.087Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-companies/5953614/nvidia/","keywords":["Lists","franchise","TIME100 Companies"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt859669b71e9f315e/698a190922fb857e5ee2c200/nvidia-time100-companies-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eben Shapiro","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/eben-shapiro/"}],"creator":"Eben Shapiro","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt859669b71e9f315e/698a190922fb857e5ee2c200/nvidia-time100-companies-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-companies/5953614/nvidia/","name":"Nvidia"}}]}] ```