Nvidia Offering 5 Million USD To Upstart GPU Ventures

NVIDIA today announced the launch of the GPU Ventures Program, a new global initiative whose aim is to identify, support and invest in early stage companies leveraging the GPU for visual and other computing applications. NVIDIA is also launching the GPU Venture Zone website, a portal to publicly showcase the innovative GPU applications being developed by its ecosystem partners.

"The GPU Ventures Program represents a huge opportunity for young ambitious companies basing their businesses around the GPU. These companies are the innovators that will fuel the continued growth of the GPU platform," said Jeff Herbst, vice president of business development at NVIDIA. "Through this program we will provide financial, marketing and other support to help start-up companies realize their full potential and we strongly encourage interested entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and others to reach out to us with their ideas."

Through the GPU Ventures Program, NVIDIA intends to evaluate companies that leverage the GPU for both consumer and professional applications in all areas such as video and image enhancement, scientific discovery, financial analysis and 3D interfaces. Investments are expected to range from $500K to $5Million, and strategic partnerships are expected to span joint marketing, joint development, product distribution and beyond.

"NVIDIA's support, through investment, strategic partnership and joint marketing, has helped us to raise additional capital and gain customer visibility much more quickly," said Sam Blackman, CEO of Elemental Technologies. "We share NVIDIA's passion for using the GPU as a parallel processor, for more than just graphics, and we actively encourage other companies interested in this exciting market to join the visual computing ecosystem."

In addition to Elemental Technologies, NVIDIA has also invested in successful start ups including Acceleware, Keyhole Corporation (acquired by Google for Google Earth), Mental Images (acquired by NVIDIA), MotionDSP and Right Hemisphere. These companies were among 60 other start-ups that met with key figures in the investment and technical community at NVIDIA's 2008 Emerging Companies Summit, due to take place again in the Fall of 2009.

"NVIDIA's first annual Emerging Companies Summit was a world class event , perhaps the best and most informative private company showcase in 2008" said Drew Lanza, general partner at Morgenthaler Ventures. "We view parallel computing on the GPU as an exciting and disruptive growth opportunity for our existing and future portfolio companies, and we applaud NVIDIA's efforts to support this ecosystem through its new GPU Ventures Program and other related initiatives."

Intel N Nvidia Sue Each Other lol

Intel and Nvidia have taken place in the agreements, which allows the development of Nvidia chipsets that support Intel processors, and Intel that allows Nvidia to use technology in their motherboards.

Everything went well until Intel filed a lawsuit against Nvidia, alleging that such agreements do not allow the construction of Nvidia chipsets for Intel processors with integrated memory controllers, ie the Nehalem CPU.

"Intel has filed a lawsuit against NVIDIA seek a declaratory of rights associated with agreements between the two companies," said the official statement from Intel. "The lawsuit seeks a court declaration that NVIDIA is not licensed to produce chipsets that are compatible with any Intel processor has integrated memory controller functionality, such as microprocessors and NVIDIA Nehalem Intel has violated the agreement Intel, claiming falsely that it is licensed. Intel has been in talks with NVIDIA for over a year trying to resolve the issue but unfortunately we lost. As a result, Intel is asking the court to resolve this dispute. "

Nvidia claims that this lawsuit does not affect the NVIDIA chipsets being shipped.

"We are confident that our license agreement, as negotiated, it applies," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "At the heart of this problem is that the CPU has its course and soul of the PC is moving quickly to the GPU. This is clearly an attempt to stifle innovation in order to protect the CPU business in decline."

Huang said that, given the widespread and growing adoption of innovations from NVIDIA platform, it is not surprising that Intel is now launching a dispute over a contract signed four years ago. Innovations such as ION, SLI, hybrid power, and threaten CuDa Intel's ability to control the PC platform.