Nvidia briefly became the world’s most valuable publicly traded company in June 2024, overtaking Microsoft.
Nvidia’s market capitalization surged as investors sought exposure to the infrastructure behind generative artificial intelligence. Its graphics processing units, or GPUs, became crucial for training and running large AI models in data centers.
The company was founded in 1993 to develop graphics processors, initially emphasizing computer graphics and gaming. Its CUDA software platform later helped make Nvidia hardware useful for scientific computing and machine-learning workloads, strengthening the company’s position in AI computing.
The ranking was not permanent: Apple and Microsoft also traded for the top position during later periods. Market-cap rankings can change daily because they depend on share prices and the number of shares outstanding.