# NVIDIA launches GeForce 256

Date: 1999

## The fact

In August 1999 NVIDIA launched GeForce 256, marketed as the first GPU, a completed consumer-graphics instrument under Huang.

## Context

Neighbouring IPO is January 1999. Neighbouring Xbox 2001 is later console. He did not write a JEDEC standard as a consortium chair of the world.

IPO January 1999 is neighbouring capital. Xbox 2001 is later console silicon.

[Jensen Huang](/people/jensen-huang) has been NVIDIA’s co-founder and CEO since April 1993. He does not write a BIS Entity List, a Commission DMA article, a TSMC fab act, a Chinese CAC circular, or a French Autorité decision. A GTC keynote is not a completed export licence. A subpoena is not a conviction. CUDA is not a court finding of monopoly unless a court so found. TSMC fabricates; hyperscalers buy; Beijing and Washington write the licence. Keep those dates separate. A Greenpeace cake is not a unique ppm. A DOE supercomputer is not a unique arsenal coefficient as his personal tally.

## Evidence and sources

NVIDIA carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is [industrial-policy activism](/drivers/industrial-policy-activism): a completed GPU category launch is a consumer-and-later-compute instrument.

## What is established and what is not

Established: August 1999 GeForce 256 launch, independently reported.

Not established: that 3D gaming uniquely raised welfare that week, or a unique later training-FLOP coefficient from 1999.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Architects designed. TSMC-era foundries later built. OEMs sold boards.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies NVIDIA launches GeForce 256, not a later speech about NVIDIA launches GeForce 256.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. NVIDIA launches GeForce 256 on 1999-08-31 is not a licence to treat every later NVIDIA communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average NVIDIA launches GeForce 256 into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He launched as CEO. Architects designed. TSMC-era foundries later built. OEMs sold boards. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series.

## People

- Jensen Huang: https://factrail.ai/people/jensen-huang

## Drivers

- Industrial-Policy Activism: https://factrail.ai/drivers/industrial-policy-activism
- Digital Learning Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/edu-digital-learning-access

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/technology/nvidia-geforce-256-1999/
- https://www.nvidia.com/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/nvda-geforce-1999