Nvidia had the foresight to realize GPU's could be used for more than just graphics and put a lot of effort into CUDA. Beyond that, there was no crystal ball,

Nvidia had the foresight to realize GPU's could be used for more than just graphics and put a lot of effort into CUDA. Beyond that, there was no crystal ball, rather a useful physical product and software tools to make it accessible beyond a highly specialized set of users (I am not saying CUDA or anything is that accessible, but it makes GPU's useful to more than just game devs).