Nvidia, the darling of Wall Street’s artificial intelligence enthusiasts, continues to ascend to unprecedented heights. The company’s market capitalization climbed to $3.019 trillion on Wednesday, slightly surpassing Apple’s market cap of $2.99 trillion. This milestone positions Nvidia as the second-largest publicly traded company in the United States, trailing only Microsoft’s market cap of $3.15 trillion.
Nvidia is now the third U.S. company, after Apple and Microsoft, to surpass the $3 trillion mark. On Wednesday, shares of the Santa Clara-based chipmaker increased by 5.2% to approximately $1,224.4 per share, while Apple shares concluded the session with a 0.8% rise, closing at $196.
These gains also contributed to the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq indexes reaching new record highs by the end of the day.
Nvidia (NVDA) has reaped the most significant benefits from the AI craze that has taken Wall Street by storm this year, with its stock up by 147% in 2024 following a 239% surge in 2023. In contrast, Apple shares have seen a modest 1.7% increase year-to-date.
Earlier this week, Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, announced that the company plans to launch its most advanced AI chip platform, named Rubin, in 2026. This platform will succeed the Blackwell, which provides chips for data centers and was announced only in March. At the time, Nvidia described Blackwell as the “world’s most powerful chip.”
Nvidia dominates the AI semiconductor market, holding approximately 70% of the market share. Some analysts believe that the company’s stock has even more room to grow. “As we look ahead, we think NVDA is on pace to become the most valuable company, given the plethora of ways it can monetize AI and our belief that it has the largest addressable market expansion opportunity across the Tech sector,” wrote Angelo Zino, a senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, in a note on Wednesday evening.
In a move to make its shares more accessible, Nvidia announced a 10-for-1 stock split last month. This split aims to make buying shares in the highly sought-after semiconductor company more feasible for individual investors. The post-split shares will begin trading at market open on June 10.
