Nvidia is now the world’s most valuable publicly traded company
Nvidia has surpassed Microsoft and Apple to become the world’s most valuable publicly listed company.
The graphics processing and AI chip giant currently has a market capitalization of $3.34 trillion, a slight lead over Microsoft's $3.32 trillion and Apple's $3.29 trillion market valuations.
Nvidia's shares are currently trading at around $135 at the time of this writing after a 10-for-1 stock split that took effect earlier in June. Prior to the split, shares of Nvidia were trading at around $1,200.
The decision to initiate a stock split was done in an attempt to land Nvidia on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is a weighted index and prefers companies without extremely high share prices to prevent any one company from skewing the average too much.
Nvidia's humble beginnings
Founded in 1991 as a gaming company dedicated to producing graphics cards for high-performance video games, Nvidia is now focused on laying the technological foundations for the age of artificial intelligence.
Related: Nvidia briefly passes Apple as world’s second-most-valuable company.
The company experienced increased demand for its graphics processors during the GPU-mining era of cryptocurrencies that began around 2010 and ended with the introduction of application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) for proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining.
The AI arms race
Nvidia’s powerful graphics processors have become the go-to choice for industry giants like OpenAI, Google, Amazon, and even Microsoft, as they look to develop their artificial intelligence systems and infrastructure.
The chip manufacturer reported strong Q1 results, netting $26 billion in revenues for the business quarter. More specifically, Nvidia generated $22.6 billion in data center revenue in Q1.
The results prompted Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang to confirm that the company will be releasing new artificial intelligence chipsets every year as part of what the CEO characterized as a modern industrial revolution that will affect all sectors of the global economy.
Previously, Nvidia was committed to releasing new versions of its high-end microprocessors every two years. Ampere debuted in 2020, Hopper was launched in 2022, and the Blackwell architecture was released in 2024.
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