It's not an Nvidia Buzzword, they were the first to market it, but not the only ones who've been looking into it. Intel, AMD, game studios and academics are actively researching it. The goal is to both go beyond what rasterization can do (like good subsurface scattering, or complex shaders to accurately represent some materials) and make path tracing more efficient rather than using brute force. Raster graphics is all about using tricks and other fakery for a more efficient rendering. Neural rendering is the same principle but will leverage machine learning to render the visuals.
Intel Is Working on Real-Time Neural Rendering
AMD's 'Neural Supersampling' seeks to close the gap with Nvidia's DLSS - NotebookCheck.net News
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There's an interesting read, about how the CG industry would rather use additional power to enable more visual effects rather than doing the same thing but faster, which is an issue with 4K and high refresh rate becoming a thing. The CEO of Epic says that you could give them a gpu x10 faster than what we have now, they would still find a way to bring that hardware to its knees. But hardware isn't the only limitation. We've probably reached a point where CG artist are looking to fix problems that are glaring to their eyes, but that most gamers don't see. Hence any talk about why they are looking beyond raster graphics doesn't really hit with people. A bit like how a seasoned painter would see areas of improvement in his craft when someone with untrained eyes could think that he already reached his peak.
