Nvidia developed VR to simulate and design its $370 million headquarters

Nvidia‘s new headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., is shaped like a triangle, and that goes to the heart of what the company is all about. Triangles, after all, are the polygonal building blocks for 3D graphics images, and Nvidia has become the world’s largest stand-alone company making 3D graphics chips.

The $370 million building reflects a trend in Silicon Valley, where the most successful tech companies are crafting their buildings to reflect their own unique personalities, to attract the best talent, and inspire employees to collaborate. Sometimes, these projects can be the perfect expression of a company’s vision, and other times, they seem like excessive vanity projects that miss the mark. And in Nvidia’s case, one of the unique things is that Nvidia’s own graphics chips, virtual reality tools, and visualization software became essential in simulating the headquarters. After viewing what the building would look like in virtual reality, the company and its architects made changes to the final design.