Nvidia Corp dethroned Apple Inc as the world’s most valuable company on Friday following a record-setting rally in the stock, powered by insatiable demand for its specialized artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
Nvidia’s stock market value briefly touched US$3.53 trillion, slightly above Apple’s US$3.52 trillion, London Stock Exchange Group data showed.
Nvidia ended the day up 0.8 percent, with a market value of US$3.47 trillion, while Apple’s shares rose 0.4 percent, valuing the iPhone maker at US$3.52 trillion.
Photo: Reuters
In June, Nvidia briefly became the world’s most valuable company before it was overtaken by Microsoft Corp and Apple. The tech trio’s market capitalizations have been neck-and-neck for several months.
Microsoft’s market value stood at US$3.18 trillion, with its stock up 0.8 percent on Friday.
The Silicon Valley chipmaker is the dominant supplier of processors used in AI computing, and the company has become the biggest winner in a race between Microsoft, Alphabet Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and other heavyweights to dominate the emerging technology.
Known since the 1990s as a designer of processors for video games, Nvidia’s stock has risen about 18 percent so far this month, with a string of gains coming after OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced a funding round of US$6.6 billion.
Nvidia and other semiconductor stocks got a lift on Friday after data storage maker Western Digital Corp reported quarterly profit that beat analysts’ estimates, buoying optimism about data center demand.
“More companies are now embracing artificial intelligence in their everyday tasks and demand remains strong for Nvidia chips,” AJ Bell PLC investment director Russ Mould said.
“It is certainly in a sweet spot and so long as we avoid a big economic downturn in the United States, there is a feeling that companies will continue to invest heavily in AI capabilities, creating a healthy tailwind for Nvidia,” Mould said
Nvidia’s shares hit a record high on Tuesday, building on a rally from last week when Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, posted a 54 percent jump in quarterly profit driven by soaring demand for chips used in AI.
Meanwhile, Apple is struggling with tepid demand for iPhone sales in China, which slipped 0.3 percent in the third quarter, while sales of phones made by rival Huawei Technologies Co (華為) surged 42 percent.
Shares of Nvidia have surged nearly 190 percent so far this year as the boom in generative AI led to a series of blowout forecasts from Nvidia.
“The question is whether the revenue stream will last for a long time and will be driven by the emotion of investors rather than by any ability to prove or disprove the thesis that AI is overdone,” Cherry Lane Investments LLC partner Rick Meckler said.
“I think Nvidia knows that near term, their numbers are likely to be quite remarkable,” he added.
TRADE WAR: Tariffs should also apply to any goods that pass through the new Beijing-funded port in Chancay, Peru, an adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump said A veteran adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump is proposing that the 60 percent tariffs that Trump vowed to impose on Chinese goods also apply to goods from any country that pass through a new port that Beijing has built in Peru. The duties should apply to goods from China or countries in South America that pass through the new deep-water port Chancay, a town 60km north of Lima, said Mauricio Claver-Carone, an adviser to the Trump transition team who served as senior director for the western hemisphere on the White House National Security Council in his first administration. “Any product going
TECH SECURITY: The deal assures that ‘some of the most sought-after technology on the planet’ returns to the US, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said The administration of US President Joe Biden finalized its CHIPS Act incentive awards for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), marking a major milestone for a program meant to bring semiconductor production back to US soil. TSMC would get US$6.6 billion in grants as part of the contract, the US Department of Commerce said in a statement yesterday. Though the amount was disclosed earlier this year as part of a preliminary agreement, the deal is now legally binding — making it the first major CHIPS Act award to reach this stage. The chipmaker, which is also taking up to US$5 billion
High above the sparkling surface of the Athens coastline, the cranes for building the 50-floor luxury tower centerpiece of Greece’s future “smart city” look out over the Saronic Gulf. At their feet, construction machinery stirs up dust. Its backers say the 8 billion euro (US$8.43 billion) project financed by private funds is a symbol of Greece’s renaissance after the years of financial stagnation that saw investors flee the country. However, critics see it more as a future “ghetto for the rich.” It is hard to imagine that 10km from the Acropolis, a new city “three times the size of Monaco”
STRUGGLING BUSINESS: South Korea’s biggest company and semiconductor manufacturer’s buyback fuels concerns that it could be missing out on the AI boom Samsung Electronics Co plans to buy back about 10 trillion won (US$7.2 billion) of its own stock over the next year, putting in motion one of the larger shareholder return programs in its history. South Korea’s biggest company would repurchase the stock in stages over the coming 12 months, it said in a regulatory filing on Friday. As a first step, it would buy back about 3 trillion won of paper starting today up until February next year, all of which it would cancel. The board would deliberate on how best to effect the remaining 7 trillion won of buybacks. The move
RSS