Nvidia became the world’s most valuable publicly traded company during the stock-market surge of June 2024.
Nvidia briefly overtook Microsoft and Apple in market capitalization on June 18, 2024. Its share price had risen sharply as investors anticipated strong demand for the company’s graphics-processing units, which are widely used in artificial-intelligence computing.
Nvidia began as a graphics-chip designer for computer games but expanded into data-center acceleration and AI hardware. Its CUDA software platform also helped create an ecosystem around Nvidia processors.
Leadership rankings based on market capitalization can change quickly. Nvidia’s position was not permanent, and the ordering among Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple shifted repeatedly as their share prices moved.