Nvidia became the world’s most valuable publicly traded company after its 2024 artificial-intelligence stock surge.
Nvidia briefly took the top market-capitalization position in June 2024, as investors rushed to value its graphics processors and data-center systems used for artificial-intelligence computing. Market leadership later shifted among Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple as their share prices moved.
Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. It first became famous for graphics processing units used in personal computers and video games. Those processors later became highly useful for parallel computing and machine-learning workloads.
The company’s rise illustrates why market-cap rankings can change quickly. A ranking reflects current share prices and share counts, while the underlying business may continue operating normally. Nvidia’s stock also underwent a ten-for-one split in 2024, which changed the per-share price but did not by itself change the company’s total market value.