Nvidia Corp. (NVDA.O) briefly overtook Apple on Thursday to become the most valuable company in history, as its market capitalization surged to $3.92 trillion amid renewed investor confidence in artificial intelligence.
Shares of the AI chip giant rose 2.2% to $160.6 in morning trading, nudging its valuation above Apple’s previous record of $3.915 trillion, set on December 26, 2024. The rally underscores Wall Street’s conviction in Nvidia’s position at the heart of the generative AI revolution.
The company’s latest high-performance chips are powering breakthroughs in large-scale AI model training, making Nvidia a preferred vendor for major technology firms racing to build next-gen AI data centers.
Nvidia surpasses Apple, Microsoft in valuation
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) currently ranks second among the most valuable companies, with a market cap of $3.7 trillion, followed by Apple (AAPL.O) at $3.19 trillion.
A competitive sprint among tech titans including Microsoft, Amazon (AMZN.O), Meta (META.O), Alphabet (GOOGL.O), and Tesla (TSLA.O) to dominate AI infrastructure has created unprecedented demand for Nvidia’s GPUs hardware originally built for gaming but now central to AI deployment.
Nvidia’s market value has skyrocketed nearly eightfold since 2021, when it was valued at around $500 billion. It is now worth more than the entire stock markets of Canada and Mexico combined, and exceeds the value of all listed firms in the UK, according to LSEG data.
Valuation still below 5-year P/E average
Despite the meteoric rise, Nvidia trades at about 32 times expected earnings over the next year, below its five-year average P/E of 41, suggesting earnings estimates have climbed faster than the stock itself.
The company’s shares have rebounded 68% since April 4, when global markets dipped in response to tariff threats from President Donald Trump. Hopes of impending trade deals have since revived investor sentiment.
Nvidia’s soaring valuation reflects broader market bets on the commercialization of generative AI, with its stock now accounting for 7% of the S&P 500 (.SPX). Alongside Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet, Nvidia contributes to 28% of the index, significantly increasing exposure for retirement savers invested in passive index funds.
Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Nvidia has transformed from a gaming hardware niche player into a global AI bellwether. Its rise comes after a slow start to the year, when China-based DeepSeek sparked concern with a low-cost AI model that outperformed Western systems.