Right about now, you’re probably wishing that your love of Nvidia GPUs had translated into buying its stock back in 1999. Back then, it was available for $12 (R215 at today’s exchange rate) per share. As of this week, that value has skyrocketed to a new high.
Earlier this week, shares in the chip-maker rose to an all-time high of $164 (R2,900), nudging Nvidia past the $4 trillion market cap mark. This makes the US-based company the first ever to achieve this milestone, though it’s unlikely to be the last.
What now, Nvidia?
The peak occurred on Wednesday, seeing CEO Jensen Huang’s company briefly cross the $4 trillion valuation barrier. It later dipped back below the high-water mark, closing at $162.88 a share. That leaves the company worth — according to the stock market — $3.97 trillion. That’s still a substantial amount of money.
Other tech companies are waiting for their turn to perform the same trick. The BBC, citing figures from Bloomberg, pegs Microsoft’s current valuation at approximately $3.8 trillion, while Apple is valued at $3.1 trillion. First one, and then the other should manage Nvidia’s trick… unless something catastrophic happens.
The chip-maker’s rise in value has been meteoric, powered by demand for chips used to train AI systems. It increasingly appears that Nvidia is the only tech company actually making money from the technology. Though it has invested in Perplexity AI, it doesn’t develop any AI services itself. Presently, the real money in artificial intelligence is earned by those creating hardware and infrastructure.
