NVIDIA became the world’s most valuable company in 2024 as demand for artificial-intelligence hardware drove its market capitalization higher.
NVIDIA crossed above Microsoft and Apple in June 2024, although the ranking changed repeatedly afterward. Investors focused on the company’s graphics-processing units, which are widely used to train and run artificial-intelligence models in data centers.
NVIDIA began as a graphics-chip designer for computer games but expanded into accelerated computing, networking, automotive technology, and data-center systems. Its CUDA software platform also helped make its hardware attractive to developers and researchers.
The company’s market value depends on expectations as well as current results. Rapid growth can produce a very high valuation, but market leadership can change quickly when earnings, competition, interest rates, or investor sentiment shift.