One of the most interesting trends in modern technology is how much more integrated it has become. From your internet connection to your smartphone, all of the little things working together create a whole that‘s greater than the sum of its parts.
As the world continues to advance, it‘s important to know who the major players are. This list will give you an idea of how much power these companies have and what they can do with it. It also shows us how much influence they have in the world today.
That‘s what this list is about: taking a look at some of the largest GPU companies and then finding out what they‘re doing with their GPUs.
What Are GPUs?
GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) are specialized electronic circuits designed to rapidly process and manipulate memory to accelerate the creation of images intended for output to a display device.
Although they were initially designed just for the rendering of graphics and images for video games, GPUs today are used extensively for:
- Computer-aided design (CAD)
- Virtual reality
- Video editing and encoding
- Cryptocurrency mining
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning
Modern GPUs are very efficient at manipulating computer graphics and image processing. Their highly parallel structure makes them much faster than general-purpose central processing units (CPUs) for a range of complex algorithms.
The Largest GPU Companies in the World
10. Sapphire Technology Limited – $26.493 billion
Sapphire Technology Limited is a graphics card manufacturer based in Hong Kong, China. It was founded in 2001 and specializes in producing AMD-based graphics cards for personal computers and workstations.
Sapphire made a name for itself during the cryptocurrency mining boom by offering affordable yet high-quality graphics cards. This allowed the company to compete against bigger players like NVIDIA and AMD directly. The reasonably-priced cards were a hit among mainstream gamers as well as crypto miners, greatly boosting Sapphire‘s profile and share in GPU market segments.
The company has continued enhancing its portfolio of consumer graphics cards, motherboards and other products. They are poised to benefit from the next generation of gaming and creative workloads expected in coming years.
9. Micro-Star International (MSI) – $3.335 billion
MSI is a Taiwanese multinational computer hardware and electronics company founded in 1986. While motherboards and components remain a key business, MSI has diversified into complete gaming laptops, All-In-One PCs, mobile workstations, servers and more to become a leading name in the PC category.
In graphics cards, MSI designs and manufactures both AMD and NVIDIA-based offerings catering to the full spectrum – from budget single GPU cards for casual gamers all the way to flagship enthusiast-grade cards for 4K gaming. Their popular Gaming X trio and gaming-centric laptops have earned them a following among PC gamers over the last decade.
MSI has invested heavily in developing cards that can not only enable the best gaming experiences but also newer workloads like content creation, streaming and mining. The company is poised to ride the next technology wave with its strong focus on quality and innovation.
8. ZOTAC Technology Limited – $119.33 billion
ZOTAC is a Hong Kong-based PC components company owned by PC Partner group. Established in 2006, ZOTAC specifically specializes in manufacturing NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards for a global audience.
The company focuses exclusively on developing NVIDIA based GPUs ranging from entry-level cards for casual gamers to high-end models designed for enthusiasts. ZOTAC is particularly well-regarded among the PC gaming community for their compact yet powerful graphics cards.
In recent years, ZOTAC has actively targeted and sponsored esports tournaments to further cement its brand among competitive gamers. With strong engineering capabilities and an NVIDIA-focused strategy, ZOTAC is well-placed to continue being a leading graphics card manufacturer.
7. GIGABYTE Technology – $326.50M
GIGABYTE is a Taiwanese manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, gaming laptops and desktop PCs. Established in 1986, they have grown to become one of the most recognizable names in the PC components industry.
In the GPU space, GIGABYTE offers a wide range of AMD and NVIDIA based graphics cards for gamers and creative professionals. Their flagship AORUS branded cards compete directly with premium offerings from the likes of ASUS and MSI.
Beyond great hardware, GIGABYTE is also focused extensively on software tools and utilities to enhance performance, customization and ease-of-use for end-users. With both technology and branding expertise, GIGABYTE is undoubtedly one of the leading GPU vendors today.
6. ASUS – $6.16 billion
ASUS is a Taiwan-based multinational computer hardware company that manufactures motherboards, GPUs, laptops, desktop PCs, mobile phones and other computer components. Founded in 1989, ASUS has grown to become the 5th largest PC vendor in the world.
In graphics cards, ASUS ROG (Republic of Gamers) branded GPUs have earned a strong following among gaming and modding enthusiasts. Their extensive lineup spanning both AMD and NVIDIA chips offers something for all needs and budgets. ASUS is also at the forefront of developing specialty cards focused for crypto mining and content creation workloads.
With their unmatched experience and continued expansion into new growth areas, ASUS is undoubtedly one of the leading GPU brands today. Their innovative cards and technologies will continue defining the future of computer graphics.
5. Apple – $2.626 trillion
Apple is an American technology giant that has redefined computing with its revolutionary iPhone smartphone and popular MacBook laptops. Although Apple designs its custom SoC chips like the latest M2 chip with integrated GPUs, they have not yet entered the discrete desktop graphics card market.
However, with Apple‘s vast engineering resources and the company‘s recent transition to using its own silicon, there is enormous future potential for Apple to disrupt the GPU market. There are already rumors suggesting that Apple might be working on a gaming-focused desktop computer and graphics card to compete with Windows PCs.
Given Apple‘s track record of delivering category-defining products, they are poised to shake up the GPU marketplace in the coming years once they set sights on it. The exact strategy Apple takes with GPUs is still a mystery but remains one of the more exciting things to watch out for.
4. Intel – $129.58 billion
Intel is the world‘s largest semiconductor chip maker. Founded in 1968, Intel pioneered the x86 architecture for CPUs that still underpins most PCs and servers globally. Although Intel is more well-known for its processors, the company has been slowly getting more serious about selling high-performance discrete graphics cards.
Intel‘s integrated GPUs are already incorporated alongside CPUs for mainstream desktop and laptop PCs. Since 2020, Intel has launched discrete Arc Alchemist gaming graphics cards to compete directly with AMD and NVIDIA. Although still in early stages, Intel GPUs flaunt excellent hardware and software capabilities for next-gen workloads.
With its advanced GPU IP portfolio and massive R&D infrastructure, Intel promises to shake up the duopoly from NVIDIA and AMD in affordable performance graphics. Expect Intel‘s share in discrete GPUs to steadily grow in coming years.
3. NVIDIA – $361.4 billion
NVIDIA is widely considered one of the most important technology companies today driving innovation in high performance computing with its specialized processors and software platforms. Founded in 1993, NVIDIA invented the GPU to offload complex graphics workloads away from the CPU.
Since then, NVIDIA GPUs have become ubiquitous across gaming, professional visualization, data science, automotive and cloud computing. The company‘s intense focus on GPU computing has allowed their chips to excel at parallel workloads like neural networks. As AI grew exponentially this past decade, so did NVIDIA‘s fortunes.
With advanced new chip architectures like Ampere and invested software platforms like CUDA, NVIDIA exerts market leader dominance in cutting-edge computing today. The company is at the forefront in leading many of the next technology waves from Metaverse to self-driving vehicles.
2. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) – $136.63 billion
AMD is a global semiconductor company that designs and produces advanced microprocessors and graphics processors for the computing, graphics and visualization markets. Alongside arch-rival Intel, AMD has remained one of the two pillars holding up the global computer industry since 1969.
In GPUs, AMD‘s Radeon cards have offered stiff competition to NVIDIA over decades. Leveraging experience from both GPUs and CPUs, AMD offers tightly integrated products delivering excellent overall value. The company has made technology breakthroughs like incorporating HBM memory to keep pushing graphics innovation further.
More recently, AMD‘s GPUs have also proven immensely popular for crypto mining purposes due to efficiency advantages. As interest in blockchain technology expands, so do more opportunities for AMD‘s GPU business as a market leader.
Comparing the Major GPU Players
Now that we have outlined the 10 biggest companies involved in graphics processing tech, how do they stack up against each other? Here is a head-to-head look at some key parameters:
Market Share: Undisputed leader NVIDIA commands over 80% discrete GPU market share catering to various computing segments. AMD trails at around 15% but leads in console chip production. The remainder is divided between smaller players like Intel, ASUS and Gigabyte.
Innovation: NVIDIA and AMD each have cutting-edge R&D producing breakthrough GPU architectures every few years pushing limits of performance. NVIDIA‘s software and platforms also give it an edge.
Breadth of Portfolio: Again NVIDIA by far has the widest range of GPU offerings optimized for domains like datacenter AI, autonomous vehicles, graphics and more. Competition like AMD and Intel are still working on expanding into more specializations.
Based on these and more criteria, NVIDIA emerges as the overall GPU sector leader today owing to market penetration, sustained technology innovation rhythm and sheer product catalog depth for emerging workloads. Intel and AMD have tremendous scope though to catch up as GPU computing becomes ubiquitous.
The GPU applications are themselves evolving extremely rapidly. To give an example – crypto mining represented a lucrative segment in the past but demand has fizzled out recently due to market changes and regulation. In the future, self-driving car neural networks or cloud gaming streams could emerge as billion-dollar catalysts for the graphics industry again.
In that dynamic environment, GPU companies know they cannot rest on past successes. Competitive forces will continue driving each of them to push boundaries delivering the next breakthrough that captures the imagination of consumers and enterprises alike.
The innovation journey Silicon Valley began decades ago with the GPU showing computing‘s true potential continues unabated. How these tech giants choose to steer their research in coming years will decide what the next era of human progress looks like. Exciting times ahead as the graphics processing industry continues charting new frontiers!
