The price of computers, gaming consoles, and even smartphones has gone up this year, all thanks to the AI boom.
Now, one of the companies most responsible for that boom is looking back at the good ol’ days, when Nvidia was still best known in the PC gaming world.
Nvidia announced on Thursday that it is introducing its first series of “GeForce Trading Cards,” highlighting key moments in the history of its graphics processing units (GPUs).
The first set includes 14 possible designs. Some cards feature classic Nvidia hardware, including the NV1, Nvidia’s first multimedia processor from 1995, and the GeForce 256, which the company introduced in 1999 as its first GPU. Other cards highlight old Nvidia demos like “Bubble,” “Chameleon,” and “Medusa.”
The card set is a reminder of how far Nvidia has come. The company was co-founded by its current CEO, Jensen Huang, in 1993. For years, it was best known among PC gamers for its graphics cards. Fast-forward a few decades, and Nvidia is now the main supplier of the AI chips powering the data centers that train and run advanced AI models.
That shift has been wildly lucrative for Nvidia, which is now the most valuable company in the world by market capitalization.
It is no wonder other companies are trying to get in on the gold rush. Nvidia supplies the GPUs used in many AI data centers, but those systems also need a huge amount of memory.
Tom’s Hardware reported earlier this year that huge data center projects like OpenAI’s Stargate are calling for hundreds of thousands more DRAM wafers per month, amounting to roughly 40% of global DRAM output.
In response to increased demand from AI companies, memory makers like SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron have increasingly prioritized data center customers over consumer electronics companies. Micron even decided to wind down its consumer business brand, Crucial, to focus on data center demand.
That shift has helped fuel a memory shortage for consumer electronics companies, a crisis commonly referred to as the “RAMpocalypse.”
Samsung’s co-CEO, TM Roh, acknowledged the crisis in an interview with Reuters earlier this year.
“As this situation is unprecedented, no company is immune to its impact,” Roh told Reuters, acknowledging that the shortage could potentially affect not just smartphones but also TVs and home appliances.
This summer alone, Apple, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo have all raised prices on some of their products.
As for Nvidia, this lookback at its history will not cost customers anything, but you still might have a hard time getting your hands on a pack. The company says it is giving away the trading cards for free through its social media accounts and at in-person events including Bilibili World 2026, QuakeCon 2026, and gamescom 2026. The law of supply and demand is ruthless.
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