Nvidia has become the world’s first $5tn company, just three months after the Silicon Valley chipmaker was first to break through the barrier of $4tn in market value.
In comparison, Nvidia’s value is greater than the GDP of India, Japan and the United Kingdom, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Shortly after US stock markets opened on Wednesday, Nvidia’s shares touched $207.86 with 24.3bn shares outstanding, putting its market cap at $5.05tn. Ravenous appetite for Nvidia’s chips, seen as the most cutting edge in powering artificial intelligence products and software, is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
The broader US stock market has reached multiple record highs this week, buoyed up by expansive investment in artificial intelligence.
On Tuesday, Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, disclosed $500bn in chip orders. The company also announced a partnership with Uber on robotaxis and a $1bn investment in Nokia, with the two planning to work together on 6G technology. In addition, Nvidia is teaming with the US Department of Energy to build seven new AI supercomputers.
Last month, Nvidia announced that it will invest $100bn in OpenAI as part of a partnership that will add at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia AI datacenters to ramp up the computing power for the owner of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.
In August, Huang said Nvidia was discussing a potential new computer chip designed for China with the Trump administration. Donald Trump said on Air Force One that he would speak with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, about Nvidia’s chips on Thursday.
Hitting the new benchmark puts more emphasis on the upheaval being unleashed by an artificial intelligence craze that is widely viewed as the biggest tectonic shift in technology since the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone 18 years ago. Apple rode the iPhone’s success to become the first publicly traded company to be valued at $1tn, $2tn and eventually, $3tn.
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But there are concerns of a possible AI bubble, with officials at the Bank of England earlier this month flagging the growing risk that tech stock prices pumped up by the AI boom could burst. The head of the IMF has raised a similar alarm.
