Nvidia overtakes Apple as world's most valuable company amid AI boom

Nvidia has overtaken Apple to become the world’s most valuable company, driven by strong demand for AI technologies. The semiconductor company reached a market capitalisation of $3.43 trillion, surpassing Apple's $3.38 trillion. This change highlights the competitive nature of the AI industry, with Nvidia emerging as a key player due to its AI-focused chips.

Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, credits the company's rapid growth to high demand for its AI chips, especially the Hopper series, and excitement for the upcoming Blackwell generation. He stated that Nvidia is facilitating data centre modernisation to enhance computing power for AI. The company reported $30 billion in revenue for the quarter ending July 28, a 15 per cent increase from the previous quarter and a 122 per cent rise year-over-year. Nvidia anticipates third-quarter revenue of approximately $32.5 billion, indicating ongoing demand in the AI sector. In the first half of fiscal 2025, Nvidia returned $15.4 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends, with $7.5 billion still available for repurchase.

Nvidia's growth is largely attributed to its advanced GPUs, designed for AI applications. These GPUs support complex computations necessary for AI tasks, such as training language models and managing data processing in data centres globally. While other companies also produce AI-related hardware, Nvidia's focused approach on AI innovations has kept it in the lead.

Meanwhile, Apple continues to make progress in AI with consumer-oriented features, like the Apple Intelligence function. Microsoft, which is also a strong player in AI and cloud computing, has a market cap of $3.06 trillion, maintaining its influence in the tech industry.

Nvidia's ascent to the top signifies a shift in the tech landscape, where AI has become a crucial area of competition among the world’s most valuable companies.