Nvidia became the world’s most valuable company in June 2024 after its market capitalization passed Microsoft’s.
Nvidia’s rise was driven by intense demand for its graphics processing units, or GPUs, which are widely used to train and run artificial-intelligence systems. Its share price surged as cloud providers and technology companies invested heavily in AI infrastructure.
The company briefly held the top market-cap position on June 18, 2024. Rankings changed again afterward as Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple shares moved, so the event should be understood as a recorded point in time rather than a permanent order.
Nvidia was founded to develop graphics chips for computer graphics and gaming. Its CUDA software platform and data-center products later helped it become a major supplier for machine-learning workloads.