What Is CUDA Programming?

By Jeremy Bowman – Updated Jun 1, 2025 at 12:06 AM | Fact-checked by Frank Bass

Key Points

CUDA enables faster AI processing by allowing simultaneous calculations, giving Nvidia a market lead.
Nvidia's CUDA platform is the foundation of many GPU-accelerated applications, attracting developers.
Nvidia continues to enhance CUDA to expand its data center capabilities and maintain competitiveness.

CUDA Programming might be the most important technology most people have never heard of. CUDA is at the heart of the graphics processing unit (GPU) and AI ecosystems for Nvidia (NVDA +2.48%) and is a major reason why the company dominates the market for data center GPUs. Keep reading to see why and learn more about CUDA.

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An Nvidia Turing T4 graphics processing unit. — Image source: Nvidia.

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About the Author

Jeremy Bowman has been a contributing Motley Fool stock market analyst, covering technology, consumer goods, and macroeconomic trends since 2011. Before The Motley Fool, Jeremy was a newspaper reporter, restaurant manager, and English teacher abroad. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Colorado College and a master’s degree in business administration from American University. One of his Motley Fool headlines was briefly featured on Late Night with Stephen Colbert.

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Jeremy Bowman has positions in Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.