In an extraordinary milestone for the tech industry, Nvidia has officially become the first publicly traded US company to reach a staggering $4 trillion market capitalisation — underscoring its meteoric rise amid a global surge in demand for artificial intelligence.
The chipmaker’s shares climbed as much as 2.5% on Wednesday, hitting a record high of $164 and pushing its valuation past the historic threshold. With this achievement, Nvidia now stands ahead of both Apple and Microsoft, the only other American companies to cross the $3 trillion mark.
The milestone is all the more remarkable considering the rapid pace of Nvidia’s growth. It first reached the $1 trillion level in June 2023 and has tripled that figure in just over a year — a feat neither Apple nor Microsoft managed in such a short span.
Nvidia’s recent rally reflects investor confidence in its dominance of the AI semiconductor space, despite earlier jitters sparked by China’s rollout of a cheaper AI model developed by DeepSeek. The company has rebounded impressively, up around 74% from its April low when markets were shaken by President Donald Trump’s new wave of tariffs.
Nvidia now carries the heaviest weighting on the S&P 500 index at 7.3%, surpassing Apple (7%) and Microsoft (6%). According to LSEG data, its market capitalisation exceeds the entire value of publicly listed firms in the UK, and even the combined stock markets of Canada and Mexico.
Fueling this investor enthusiasm is the company’s dominant position in the AI supply chain. Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) are widely regarded as the gold standard for powering machine learning and AI applications — from data centers to self-driving cars.
In its latest earnings report, Nvidia posted revenue of $44.1 billion for the first quarter — a staggering 69% increase year-over-year — along with earnings of $0.81 per share. The company is projecting second-quarter revenues of $45 billion, give or take 2%, with official results due on August 27.
Despite its massive valuation, Nvidia’s stock is trading at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 32 — below its three-year average of 37, according to LSEG. That suggests investors still see room for growth, especially as demand for AI infrastructure shows no signs of slowing.
So far in 2025, Nvidia shares are up more than 22%, outpacing the broader Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which has gained nearly 15% over the same period.
As Wall Street doubles down on artificial intelligence, Nvidia’s ascent is increasingly being viewed as more than just a stock story — it’s become a symbol of a new technological era, powered by chips that are shaping the future.
