Nvidia becomes world’s first $5 trillion company

• AI chipmaker Nvidia became the world’s first $5 trillion company in market value on October 29.

• The milestone underscores the company’s swift transformation from a niche graphics-chip designer into the backbone of the global AI industry, turning CEO Jensen Huang into a Silicon Valley icon.

• Huang has led Nvidia since founding it in 1993.

• By way of comparison, the level was greater than the GDP of France or Japan or higher than that of Tesla, Meta (Facebook), and Netflix combined.

• Microsoft and Apple, the two other largest global market capitalisations, only just exceed $4 trillion in valuation each.

• The development of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in 1999 was a real game-changer for Nvidia. It sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined computer graphics, revolutionised accelerated computing, ignited the era of modern AI, and is fueling industrial digitalisation across markets. 

• Nvidia is now a full-stack computing infrastructure company with data-center-scale offerings that are reshaping the industry. 

• Hitting the new benchmark puts more emphasis on the upheaval being unleashed by an AI craze.

• Nvidia produces advanced GPUs that power most generative AI systems, including those behind ChatGPT and other large language models.

• Nvidia has announced a series of partnerships in recent weeks, including an intention to invest up to $100 billion in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI over the coming years.

• However, there are concerns of a possible AI bubble, with experts flagging the growing risk that tech stock prices pumped up by the AI boom could burst.