A MAJOR company that most people have never heard of has become the first to hit $4 trillion in value.
Chipmaker Nvidia soared past the staggering milestone overtaking giants like Apple and Microsoft as its shares rose 2.5% on Wednesday – topping $164 each.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show[/caption]
The Nvidia World Headquarters located in Santa Clara[/caption]
Man holding a powerful NVIDIA GPU video card[/caption]
The company’s lightning-fast rise has been stunning, with its shares going for $14 each at the start of 2023.
If Nvidia were a country, it would have the world’s sixth largest GDP – just ahead of the UK and behind Japan.
It follows the company experiencing a two-year investor frenzy amid a global boom in AI technology.
Nvidia was initially well known for producing graphics processor units for video games.
These chips, as well as powering many beloved games, are also crucial in powering many artificial intelligence programmes.
Well-known chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini can be powered by such specialist chips.
While lesser known to the average American than other tech giants like Microsoft and Apple, Nvidia has nonetheless been a history-maker.
It was co-founded by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem in the 1990s.
The company’s recent successes have been in part thanks to growing public and investor interest in AI over the past two years.
Nvidia surpassed Apple’s valuation back in January and Microsoft’s earlier this month.
Back two years ago, the company’s market value stood at a far lower $600 billion.
High demand for chips to power AI has helped Nvidia overcome tariff-related market turbulence over the past few months.
The company saw an $18.8 billion profit in the last quarter, as its revenue grew to $44.1 billion.
Wall Street expects Nvidia to see further record profit when it reports its second-quarter results next month, according to AP.
CEO Huang has been vocal on rising AI proliferation across many industries.
In May, he told Milken Institute’s Global Conference 2025: “Every job will be affected, and immediately. It is unquestionable.
“You’re not going to lose your job to an AI, but you’re going to lose your job to someone who uses AI.”
The company, based in Santa Clara, California, previously reached a $3 trillion valuation in June 2024.
It is one of a tiny handful of companies with multi-billion dollar valuations, many of which are also major US tech giants.
Others include big names such as Microsoft, Apple and Alphabet – Google‘s parent company.
Nvidia’s milestone comes despite market woes over Donald Trump‘s tariffs, which the company said in April could see it take a $5.5 billion hit due to Chinese export restrictions by the US government.
At the time, Huang said: “The $50 billion China market is effectively closed to US industry.”
It comes as both the US and China scramble for dominance in the rapidly growing AI sector.
NVIDIA video chip on the motherboard[/caption]
Nvidia logo[/caption]
