Nvidia briefly became the world’s most valuable public company in June 2024.
On June 18, 2024, Nvidia’s share-price surge lifted its market capitalization above those of Microsoft and Apple for a short period. The company’s valuation was driven largely by demand for its graphics-processing units, or GPUs, used in artificial-intelligence computing and data centers.
Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. It originally became known for graphics chips used in personal computers and video games, but its programmable CUDA platform helped make its GPUs important for scientific computing and machine-learning workloads.
The ranking did not remain fixed. Market capitalization changes whenever share prices move, so companies can exchange positions within hours. Nvidia later used a ten-for-one stock split in June 2024, which lowered the per-share price but did not by itself reduce the company’s total market value.