Is there any stopping the indomitable rise of NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, ETR:NVD)?
The Silicon Valley chipmaker has existed in relative obscurity for the better part of its 30-year lifespan.
Sure, its gaming-focused graphics processing units were (and continue to be) the top-shelf option for PC gamers around the world, but Nvidia was hardly seen as a member of the upper echelons of the Silicon Valley tech elite.
Things have changed massively in a very short space of time.
In just two years, Nvidia has seen its market valuation increase by more than 600%. The Street watched this chipmaker’s share price rocket past Netflix, Tesla, Google, Broadcom, Amazon and Meta.
Now, following a 5% gain on Wednesday, Nvidia has claimed another scalp in Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL, ETR:APC).
As of this moment, Nvidia is valued at $3.01 trillion versus Apple’s measly $3 trillion.
The gap is expected to widen even further when US markets open today, with pre-market trades pointing to a 0.95% gain on Nvidia stock and a 0.17% loss on Apple stock.
It makes Nvidia the second-largest US company by market cap, behind only Microsoft. Even here, the difference is a mere $140 billion rounding error.
Nvidia has undoubtedly benefited more from the artificial intelligence revolution than any other company.
Historically the preserve of gamers, its high-spec GPUs found a new lease on life in the data centre boom, as every company from Amazon and Alphabet to ChatGPT developer OpenAI called on Nvidia for its highly optimised – and highly-priced – AI processing units.
Big Apple, bigger Nvidia
But the Apple flipping is as much an Apple story as an Nvidia story.
Apple was caught off guard when AI applications swept across the tech world.
While other Magnificent 7 members either led the AI conversation (i.e. Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta) or seamlessly shouldered their way into it (i.e. Alphabet, Amazon), Apple continued its hardware-centric mission plan with a new augmented reality headset and flashy new iPad models.
Some, like the Vision Pro headset, garnered a mixed, or a least confused, reception, while Apple's new iPad Pro 2024 is being hailed as a classic piece of Apple engineering genius.
The jury is still out if AI is trapped in a boom-and-bust cycle. If so, Nvidia could be the first to come crashing down to reality. For now, it can bask in the glory of being bigger than the big apple.