Nvidia became the second-most valuable public company after it passed Apple in market cap Wednesday.
The chipmaker hit a $3 trillion market cap yesterday after its stock rose over 5%. The company reached a market value of $3.019 trillion at market close, surpassing Apple’s, which stood at $2.99 trillion. Now, it is just behind Microsoft’s $3.15 trillion.
Nvidia’s share price rose to more than $1,224, continuing its rapid climb driven by significant investments in artificial intelligence (AI) in the past couple of years.
In contrast, Apple’s market cap fell as its shares rose only about 5% this year. Its recent quarterly earnings showed a 4% overall sales drop and a 10% decline in iPhone sales.
Meanwhile,
Nvidia’s latest H100 chip dominates the AI race. The company plans on releasing a new AI chip every year, starting with the Blackwell B200 GPU, expected later this year.
The Santa Clara-based firm’s clients include AI technology frontrunner OpenAI (known for ChatGPT) and tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Tesla.
Founded in 1993, Nvidia originally specialized in graphics processing chips for gaming computers but has since expanded into AI, boosting its market share. Its CEO, Jensen Huang, calls AI the “next industrial revolution.”
Nivdia’s stock, historically more volatile than Apple’s, has skyrocketed over 3,290% in the past five years, partly due to its shift from gaming hardware to AI and cryptocurrency mining chips.
The AI chip firm’s 10-for-1 stock split is happening on June 7. It will increase the number of shares and reduce their value a little, making it affordable for small-time investors.