It’s no secret that NVIDIA is one of the leading names when it comes to computer graphic processors and other technology-related products. It has been so for the past couple of years, and they have maintained this lead with quality products. Here are 10 facts about the giant company that not everyone knows:

Fact 1: NVIDIA was the company that invented the GPU in 1999. Now you know who to thank for those sweet, high-definition graphics today.

Fact 2: They have over 5,000 patents for their products worldwide as of today.

Fact 3: Nearly all of the films you saw that were nominated for awards in the past couple of years in the field of visual effects used NVIDIA technology to create those jaw-dropping special effects. How’s that for proof of quality?

Fact 4: The brand new NVIDIA Tegra 4 they released is considered to be the world’s fastest and highest-rated quad-core processor.

Fact 5: NVIDIA GPUs are generally used all over the world and are, in fact, incorporated and  being used today by the fastest computer developed.

Fact 6: The NVIDIA Tesla GPU is currently being used by top-of-the-line hospitals in order to virtually perform sensitive surgeries on patients using robotic arms.

Fact 7: NVIDIA Corporation is presently ranked in the 6th spot of the ‘œGreenest Companies of 2012’ showing that technology and the environment can co-exist together.

Fact 8: NVIDIA currently has 20 branches worldwide and has a workforce of about 8,000 employees.

Fact 9: NVIDIA Corporation is the sole manufacturer that Microsoft chose to produce and supply GPUs to their Xbox gaming console.

Fact 10: Another first for the company was when they became the very first 3D graphics semiconductor company to manufacture processors for home entertainment use.