Nvidia opens up graphic war chest

NVIDIA IS DRUMMING up support for for what it calls visual and high-performance computing by offering cash to companies through a GPU Ventures Program.

The company has invested before in baubles like Google Earth and is now formalising the process, according to a spokesman.

The graphics firm will bung between $500,000 and $5 million at companies finding new uses for CPUs, using CUDA, its parallel processing "architeecture".

The firm set up GPU Venture Zone on which companies can beg for the dosh as well as flog their wares.

Nividia said it  invested $5 million in five start-ups last year and said it is keen to invest more ths year. µ