Nvidia Surpasses Apple to Become Most Valuable Company in History

What Happened?

Nvidia stock increased by 2.2% this week to $160.6 per share, pushing the tech company’s overall valuation to $3.92 trillion, surpassing Apple’s mark of $3.915 trillion to become the world’s most valuable company. 

A high-stakes race between Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and Apple to build artificial intelligence data centers and dominate the emerging technology has led to increasing demand for Nvidia's high-end processors. Nvidia’s processors have been successful in training large AI models, leading companies seeking to grow their AI capabilities to buy more from Nvidia.

Why it Matters

Nvidia’s market value has soared in the past several years thanks to the growth of AI. Originally Nvidia’s core technology was developed to power graphics processors video games, and its value has increased nearly eight-fold over the past four years, from $500 billion in 2021. By expanding its core technology to include processors that can be used to train AI programs, Nvidia has positioned itself as a global leader in technology.

Why Billionaires Are Stockpiling This "Boring" Token

The world's largest financial institutions are building massive positions in a protocol most retail investors consider too "unsexy" to notice. As markets are volatile post-tariffs, this coin continues setting transaction records while flying almost completely under the radar.

Discover the "boring" financial token that's making the elite wealthy for only $3.

Initially, Nvidia specialized in graphics processing units (GPUs). As their name implies, GPUs are better able to render images, which meant that they were first associated with high quality video and computer games. But GPUs are also able to perform calculations concurrently in a way that regular central processing units cannot — making them more energy efficient and better able to handle the sophisticated computing demands of AI programs. Nvidia had the perfect hardware to support AI, and then major tech companies started to notice.

The rapid rise of Nvidia’s market value reflects the enormous increase in investments made by leading technology companies in AI. The big five tech companies, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Apple, have devoted substantial amounts of money and resources towards developing new AI capabilities and the supporting infrastructure needed to run it. This includes stand-alone power facilities and even independent nuclear plants whose sole purpose is to supply electrical power to data centers that are used to support AI programs.

Nvidia is headquartered in California, but nearly all its chips are manufactured in Taiwan. In Taiwan the company is engaged in a number of new projects, including the construction of a new international headquarters named ‘Nvidia Constellation’ in Taipei and collaborating with Taiwanese companies to build an AI supercomputer. Nvidia has also expanded its partnership with Foxconn to create an ‘AI factory’ supercomputer using Blackwell infrastructure. 

If the AI programs being built by the leading tech companies succeed, Nvidia’s market growth is likely to continue for the next several years.

How it Affects You

AI programs are already being incorporated into many different aspects of the economy and everyday life, and it is changing the way people use the internet. As we move from an information economy to an answer economy, web users are looking to AI programs to provide them with answers instead of just links.