Nvidia overtakes Apple as worlds most valuable company with $3.5T valuation

Nvidia dethroned Apple as the world’s most valuable company on Friday, following a record-setting rally in the stock powered by an insatiable demand for its new supercomputing AI chips.Nvidia’s stock market value briefly touched $3.53 trillion, while that of Apple was $3.52 trillion, according to data from LSEG.In June, Nvidia briefly became the world’s most valuable company, before it was overtaken by Microsoft and Apple.The tech trio’s market capitalizations have been neck-and-neck for several months.

Microsoft’s market value stood at $3.20 trillion.Nvidia’s stock has risen about 18% so far in October, with a string of gains coming after OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced a funding round of $6.6 billion. Nvidia provides chips used to train so-called foundation models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4.“More companies are now embracing artificial intelligence in their everyday tasks and demand remains strong for Nvidia chips,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.“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.”Nvidia’s shares hit a record high on Tuesday, building on a rally from last week when TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, posted a forecast-beating 54% jump in quarterly profit driven by soaring demand for chips used in AI.The next big test will be when Nvidia reports third-quarter results in November. Nvidia in August forecast third-quarter revenue of $32.5 billion, plus or minus 2%, compared with the current average analyst expectation of $32.90 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore said in a note dated Oct.10 that he remains “very bullish” about the company longer term, but the recent rally “raises the bar for earnings somewhat.”After a meeting with Nvidia’s CE...