Nvidia share price surged to an all-time high on Thursday, pushing its market capitalization close to the $4 trillion mark and positioning it as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company — a milestone driven by relentless investor optimism around artificial intelligence.
Shares of the AI chipmaker rose as much as 2.4% in intraday trading to $160.98, briefly valuing the company at $3.92 trillion — surpassing Apple’s record closing market cap of $3.915 trillion set on December 26, 2024. However, Nvidia stock price ended the day up 1.33% at $159.34, with a market value of $3.89 trillion, placing it ahead of both Apple and Microsoft.
Microsoft remains the second-most valuable company on Wall Street with a market capitalization of $3.71 trillion, as its shares advanced 1.58% to close at $498.84. Apple shares rose 0.52% to $213.55 apiece, giving it a market value of $3.19 trillion, in third place.
Nvidia’s market valuation has jumped nearly eightfold since 2021 — from $500 billion to nearly $4 trillion — as demand for its high-performance chips has exploded alongside the AI revolution. Originally known for designing graphics processors for video games, Nvidia has become the cornerstone of the generative AI boom, powering data centers and AI infrastructure for tech giants.
The rally in Nvidia shares also lifted the broader market, with the Nasdaq Composite closing at a record high of 20,601.10, up 207.97 points or 1.02%.
According to LSEG data, Nvidia’s current valuation even exceeds the combined market capitalization of all publicly traded companies in the United Kingdom, and is larger than the stock markets of both Canada and Mexico, Reuters reported.
Despite its meteoric stock rise, Nvidia is trading at about 32 times analysts’ expected earnings over the next 12 months — below its five-year average price-to-earnings ratio of around 41. This reflects accelerating earnings growth that continues to outpace its share price gains.
Nvidia now accounts for 7% of the S&P 500 index. Along with Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet, these five tech giants make up 28% of the benchmark index — underscoring their outsized influence on US equities.
The company’s latest generation of AI chips is helping train some of the most advanced large language models, driving soaring demand from cloud providers and tech leaders. A fierce race among Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Tesla to build next-generation AI infrastructure has further fueled the need for Nvidia’s cutting-edge processors.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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