Nvidia Surpasses Apple, Becomes 2nd Largest U.S. Public Company

Nvidia, Wall Street’s artificial intelligence (AI) darling, is continuing to swell to staggering heights.

Nvidia is now the third company in the US, behind Apple and Microsoft, to cross the $3 trillion mark. I Photo: Will Buckner Flickr

The AI chipmaker’s market capitalization rose to $3.019 trillion last week, surpassing Apple’s $2.99 trillion market cap and making it the second-largest publicly traded company in the US, just behind Microsoft’s market cap of $3.15 trillion, Nicole Goodkind reported for CNN.

Nvidia is now the third company in the US, behind Apple and Microsoft, to cross the $3 trillion mark.

Shares of the Santa Clara-based chipmaker rose 5.2% to about $1,224.4 a share, while Apple shares ended the session up 0.8% at $196. These gains also helped boost the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq indices on Wednesday, both closing at new record highs.

Nvidia has been the biggest beneficiary of the AI mania dominating Wall Street this year; the stock is up 147% so far this year after soaring 239% in 2023. Apple shares, meanwhile, have gained about 1.7% year-to-date.

Earlier this week, Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, said that the company would roll out its most advanced AI chip platform, called Rubin, in 2026.

The Rubin platform will succeed the Blackwell, which supplies chips for data centers and was announced only in March. It was dubbed by Nvidia at the time as the “world’s most powerful chip.”

Nvidia accounts for around 70% of AI semiconductor sales, and some analysts think the stock has further to go, Krystal Hur, Wayne Chang, and Laura He also reported for CNN.