Nvidia is now the world's most valuable company, surpassing Apple in a tech shake-up that reflects the growing dominance of artificial intelligence.
Nvidia's market capitalization rose nearly 3 percent Tuesday and closed at $3.43 trillion, ahead of Apple's $3.4 trillion. Nvidia shares, which have nearly tripled so far in 2024, closed Tuesday at $139.91 before edging slightly lower in after-hours trading.
The company saw explosive growth in 2023 when it emerged as the primary source of the graphics processing units, or GPUs, used in the computers that power artificial intelligence operations. The chipmaker's revenue has doubled in each of the last five quarters.
Nvidia became just the third company to reach a $3 trillion market capitalization earlier this year, joining Apple and Microsoft. The AI darling briefly passed Apple to become the world's most valuable company in June before sliding back into the No. 2 spot.
Apple, the first company to reach a $1 trillion and $2 trillion market cap, has been working to carve out its own niche within the AI boom as Nvidia dominates in GPU production. Apple's shares have risen more than 20 percent this year, and it recently rolled out Apple Intelligence features on iPhones. The company claims Apple Intelligence offers a more useful and private implementation of AI that's tailored specifically for iPhones. But Apple has been bogged down by a slow rollout of AI in its products and has secured fewer chips to power AI innovation than some of its biggest rivals.
Meanwhile, Nvidia has benefited from large technology companies' investment in its artificial intelligence infrastructure, which helps run AI models such as OpenAI's ChatGPT. Microsoft, the world's third-largest company with a market cap of about $3.1 trillion, has been a major customer for Nvidia's GPUs as it pursues its own AI exploration.
Nvidia leapfrogged Apple just days after it knocked another tech sector heavyweight -- Intel -- out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The chipmaker will join the blue-chip index before the market opens on Friday in an effort to better represent the modern semiconductor industry, S&P Dow Jones Indices said last week.