Nvidia became the first semiconductor company to be valued at more than US$1 trillion in May 2023.
Nvidia crossed the threshold after its share price surged following a strong financial outlook linked to demand for artificial-intelligence computing. Investors focused on Nvidia’s graphics-processing units, which are widely used for training and running large AI models.
The company’s rise illustrates how market capitalization can reflect expected future growth rather than only present sales. Nvidia began as a specialist graphics-chip designer for computer games, but its CUDA software ecosystem and data-center products expanded its importance in scientific computing and AI.
Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. Its achievement is sometimes confused with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, a major chip manufacturer, but Nvidia primarily designs chips while TSMC manufactures many advanced chips for other companies.