OpenGL is a cross-language API for 2D and 3D graphics rendering on the GPU. It was created by Silicon Graphics in 1992 and is now maintained by the Khronos Group. OpenGL provides an interface between software and graphics hardware to perform tasks like rendering, texture mapping, and shading. Developers write OpenGL code that gets translated into GPU commands by a driver for the specific graphics card. This allows hardware-accelerated graphics to be used across many platforms and programming languages.