Nvidia became the first semiconductor maker to become the world’s most valuable public company.
Nvidia briefly took the top market-capitalization position in June 2024, overtaking Microsoft and Apple. Its share price had surged as investors anticipated continuing demand for graphics-processing units used in artificial-intelligence computing.
Nvidia began by designing graphics chips for computer games, but its CUDA software platform helped make its processors useful for scientific computing and machine-learning workloads. That expanded the company’s importance beyond gaming.
The title of world’s most valuable public company is temporary because share prices change continuously. Nvidia’s rise was also helped by a 10-for-1 stock split in June 2024, although a split changes the number and price of shares without itself changing the company’s total market value.