Nvidia Overtakes Microsoft as World's Most Valuable Company

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Colin Laidley
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Colin is an Associate Editor focused on tech and financial news. He has more than three years of experience editing, proofreading, and fact-checking content on current financial events and politics. He received his M.A. in journalism from The New School and his B.A. in history and political science from McGill University.

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Updated June 18, 2024
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at a news conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on Tuesday, June 4, 2024.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at a news conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on Tuesday, June 4, 2024.

Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

  • Nvidia shares rose 3.5% on Tuesday, catapulting the AI chipmaker's market value above both Microsoft's and Apple's for the first time.
  • The company's market capitalization has increased tenfold since October 2022, when the release of ChatGPT sparked the AI frenzy that has gripped markets for over a year and a half.
  • Nvidia shares have been buoyed recently by the unveiling earlier this month of its next-generation AI system and a string of solid earnings reports from other AI infrastructure suppliers.

Nvidia (NVDA) surpassed Microsoft (MSFT) as the world’s most valuable company on Tuesday amid a relentless rally on booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and the chips that make it possible. 

Shares rose 3.5% on Tuesday, sending the company's market value to more than $3.335 trillion. Microsoft, meanwhile, which became the world’s most valuable company in January when it took the title from Apple (AAPL), dipped slightly, putting its market cap at $3.317 trillion.

Nvidia stock's meteoric rise has coincided with the company's ascent from a leading maker of graphics processing units used primarily in gaming computers to the undisputed leader in the market for AI semiconductors.

Its value has increased more than tenfold since October 2022, right before the release of ChatGPT sparked the AI frenzy that has gripped markets for over a year and a half.

Nvidia became only the seventh U.S. company to close with a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion late last May. It then blew past the $2 trillion mark in February after handily beating fiscal fourth-quarter earnings estimates. And the third trillion dollars came even faster than the second—it took Nvidia just 96 calendar days to climb from $2 trillion to $3 trillion earlier this month.

Nvidia shares have been buoyed recently by the company’s unveiling of its next-generation system, named Rubin, earlier this month. The Rubin platform is expected to be released in 2026 and will supersede the Blackwell platform unveiled earlier this year. 

AI optimism has also been boosted by a series of related developments and solid earnings reports from other suppliers of AI infrastructure, including Broadcom (AVGO) and Oracle (ORCL), as well as Apple’s unveiling last week of Apple Intelligence.

Update—June 18, 2024: This article was updated to reflect Nvidia and Microsoft's market capitalizations as of the market close on Tuesday.

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