Though the graphics processing unit is suddenly a buzzword in the world of artificial intelligence, this comes only after years of experimentation by graphics processing unit originators’ Nvidia Corp., according to Colette Kress, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Nvidia (pictured).

The ACG 2017 Outstanding Growth Award winner grossed $6.9 billion in revenue last year, a 38-percent jump from the previous year. The company owes this success to a penchant for getting its hands dirty with problems no one else wants to tackle, Kress stated during the recent awards ceremony for Association for Corporate Growth in Silicon Valley’s U.S. Trust GROW! event in Mountain View, California.

AI is one of those problems that has sat on the shelf due to complexities too daunting for most, Kress told Lisa Martin (@Luccazara), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio. (*Disclosure below.)

“It’s been out there for 20-some odd years […] trying to focus to solve that problem. And we’re making every stream to make it easier to solve that problem,” she said.

There’s more where that came from, according to Kress, who added that Nvidia sees the GPU as a programmable technology with capabilities extending to software innovation. This marks a major milestone in the company’s journey from a relatively niche gaming outfit.

“Now we’ve transformed the company to an accelerated computing company focusing on such great things, such as artificial intelligence, self driving cars, virtual reality — things that are really hard problems and things that we love,” Kress stated.

GPU grows up

In Nvidia’s pipeline are health tech initiatives that leverage the GPU to help study and hopefully treat various illnesses. The GPU, it turns out, can look at many datasets at the same, which can speed up and improve health professionals’ work, Kress pointed out.

“We have a goal out there, working with the government, stringing together so many different databases and different form factors of data,” she said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of ACG Silicon Valley U.S. Trust GROW! Awards. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner at the ACG Silicon Valley U.S. Trust GROW! Awards. The conference sponsor, AGS-SV, does not have editorial oversight of content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE