Nvidia briefly overtook Microsoft as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company in June 2024.
Nvidia’s market value surged as investors sought exposure to the hardware powering generative artificial intelligence. Its graphics-processing units, or GPUs, became central to training and running large AI models, while its CUDA software platform helped developers use Nvidia hardware efficiently.
The company’s rise illustrates why market-cap rankings can change quickly. Nvidia’s share price benefited from rapidly growing demand and exceptionally strong financial results, but its position at the top was temporary and changed as the prices of other mega-cap technology companies moved.
Nvidia was founded in 1993 and initially focused on computer graphics. It later became a major supplier of accelerated-computing technology for gaming, data centers, scientific computing, and AI.