Nvidia dethroned Apple as the world’s most valuable company on Friday, following a record-setting rally in the stock powered by an insatiable demand for its new supercomputing AI chips.
Nvidia’s stock market value briefly touched $3.53 trillion, while that of Apple was $3.52 trillion, according to data from LSEG.
In June, Nvidia briefly became the world’s most valuable company, before it was overtaken by Microsoft and Apple. The tech trio’s market capitalizations have been neck-and-neck for several months. Microsoft’s market value stood at $3.20 trillion.
Nvidia’s stock has risen about 18 per cent so far in October, with a string of gains coming after OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced a funding round of $6.6 billion. Nvidia provides chips used to train so-called foundation models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4.
“More companies are now embracing artificial intelligence in their everyday tasks and demand remains strong for Nvidia chips,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.
“It is certainly in a sweet spot and so long as we avoid a big economic downturn in the United States, there is a feeling that companies will continue to invest heavily in AI capabilities, creating a healthy tailwind for Nvidia.”
Nvidia’s shares hit a record high on Tuesday, building on a rally from last week when TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, posted a forecast-beating 54 per cent jump in quarterly profit driven by soaring demand for chips used in AI.
The next big test will be when Nvidia reports third-quarter results in November. Nvidia in August forecast third-quarter revenue of $32.5 billion, plus or minus 2 per cent, compared with the current average analyst expectation of $32.90 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore said in a note dated Oct. 10 that he remains “very bullish” about the company longer term, but the recent