Nvidia Inches Close To Becoming Most Valuable Company Ever Amid AI Surge

Nvidia briefly edged past a historic milestone on July 3 as its market capitalisation touched $3.92 trillion in morning trading, nearly overtaking Apple’s all-time record of $3.915 trillion set in December 2024.

Shares of the AI chipmaker climbed as much as 2.4% to $160.98, fuelled by soaring investor confidence in artificial intelligence and its applications across sectors. The stock later settled at $159.60, placing Nvidia's market value at $3.89 trillion, just shy of the record.

The surge reflects Wall Street’s unrelenting enthusiasm for companies enabling the AI boom. Nvidia’s chips are at the heart of large-scale generative AI development, giving it an edge over competitors in the race to build high-performance data centres.

“The first time a company crossed a trillion dollars, it was amazing. Now you’re talking four trillion, which is just incredible,” Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading, told Reuters. “It tells you that there’s this huge rush with AI spending and everybody’s chasing it right now.”

Microsoft followed as the second-most valuable firm, with a market cap of $3.7 trillion. Its shares rose 1.7% to $499.56. Apple came in third, valued at $3.19 trillion after gaining 0.8%.

Since 2021, Nvidia’s valuation has multiplied nearly eight-fold from $500 billion to nearly $4 trillion. The Santa Clara-based firm is now worth more than the combined market value of all listed companies in the United Kingdom, or even the entire Canadian and Mexican stock markets.

Nvidia has also rebounded 68% from its April 4 closing low, a period marked by market volatility following US President Donald Trump's global tariff announcements.

Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Nvidia was once known for its graphics processing units used by gamers. It is now a central figure in AI, its chips powering large language models and machine learning systems.

Nvidia’s dominance has significantly influenced index-based portfolios. S&P 500-linked retirement funds, for instance, are increasingly exposed to Nvidia’s performance due to its growing weight in the benchmark index.

1. Nvidia – $3.780 trillion – Semiconductors.

2. Microsoft – $3.697 trillion – Technology.

3. Apple – $3.010 trillion – Technology.

4. Amazon – $2.305 trillion – E-commerce.

5. Alphabet (Google) – $2.075 trillion – Technology.

6. Meta Platforms – $1.781 trillion – Social Media.

7. Saudi Aramco – $1.567 trillion – Oil & Gas.

8. Broadcom – $1.270 trillion – Semiconductors.

9. TSMC – $1.161 trillion – Semiconductors.

10. Tesla – $1.055 trillion – Automobile.