Nvidia became the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization in June 2024, surpassing Microsoft and Apple.
Nvidia reached the position on June 18, 2024, as investors responded to extraordinary demand for its graphics-processing units used in artificial intelligence systems. Its data-center business became the central driver of growth as technology companies invested heavily in AI training and inference.
The company began in 1993 and became famous for graphics chips used in computer games. Its CUDA software platform later helped developers use Nvidia processors for general-purpose parallel computing, creating an important advantage in AI workloads.
Market-cap rankings can change rapidly because they depend on share prices. Nvidia’s leadership did not mean it had the highest revenue or largest workforce; it meant investors valued its publicly traded equity above that of every other listed company at that moment.