|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
June 5, 2025 — Chipmaker Nvidia has once again claimed the top spot as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, riding a fresh wave of investor enthusiasm over artificial intelligence (AI) to surpass Microsoft and Apple in market capitalization.
The 32-year-old American tech firm closed at US$141.40 per share on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), marking a 2.9% gain for the day and lifting its total market value to a staggering US$3.45 trillion (A$5.3 trillion). That figure edges out Microsoft, now valued at US$3.44 trillion, while Apple trails at US$3.04 trillion.
If Nvidia were a country, its market cap would make it larger than the French economy, whose GDP stands at approximately US$3.28 trillion, effectively ranking the company as the seventh largest economy in the world by this measure — a testament to the scale of its success, though such comparisons are more symbolic than economic.
Comeback After January Sell-Off
The rebound marks a major comeback for Nvidia, which briefly lost its crown in January after a sharp sell-off wiped out more than US$590 billion in market value in a single day. That correction was driven by investor jitters over growing competition from China in the AI hardware space — a sector currently dominated by U.S. firms.
Since then, however, Nvidia’s stock has surged, gaining nearly 24% over the past month alone, as demand for its graphics processing units (GPUs) — the backbone of modern AI computing — remains sky-high. Its chips are central to the infrastructure behind large-scale AI models developed by companies like OpenAI, including platforms such as ChatGPT.
The AI Arms Race Boosts Nvidia
Nvidia’s leadership in the AI race has solidified its dominance in a market where advanced GPUs are essential for both training and deploying state-of-the-art machine learning models. The company continues to benefit from surging demand across cloud computing, enterprise AI, and government-backed tech initiatives.
Last week, CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang unveiled a new U.S.-based supercomputer initiative powered by Nvidia’s next-generation Vera Rubin chips, doubling down on the company’s long-term AI hardware strategy. Huang, a key public face of Nvidia’s vision, has been a prominent figure in promoting its central role in powering the AI future.
The “Magnificent 7” and a New Tech Order
Nvidia’s ascent comes amid a reshuffling of the tech industry’s elite. Alongside Microsoft and Apple, it forms part of the so-called “Magnificent 7” — the top seven tech giants that have led market gains in recent years. But with this latest surge, Nvidia now stands apart, not just as a leader in AI hardware but as a market-defining force in its own right.
Whether Nvidia can maintain its top position remains to be seen, but for now, it’s clear: AI is the engine, and Nvidia is the company steering the wheel.
