UEFI originated from EFI which was first developed by Intel for use in Itanium platform. EFI saw widespread use on consumer devices pioneered by Apple on Intel

UEFI originated from EFI which was first developed by Intel for use in Itanium platform. EFI saw widespread use on consumer devices pioneered by Apple on Intel Macs. I don't know how far Microsoft influence on EFI, because even Apple was responsible for widespread use of EFI on consumer devices.