Shares of chipmaking giant and ‘Magnificent Seven’ favourite Nvidia have been making headlines lately with their record-breaking rally on Wall Street, cementing the company’s position as the world’s most valuable firm.
The rally has not only propelled the company to unprecedented heights but has also made its market capitalisation larger than the combined value of several major global stock markets. The growing global appetite for the AI trade has kept demand for chipmakers strong, pushing Nvidia’s market capitalisation above $5.7 trillion at its peak.
Last week, the stock climbed to a fresh record high of $236, taking its valuation to $5.7 trillion. Although the share price has cooled from those highs, the market capitalisation still remains above $5 trillion at around $5.13 trillion, based on the latest closing price, making it larger than.
For instance, the aggregate market capitalisation of stocks listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange stood at $4.95 trillion as of today, according to Bloomberg, which is lower than Nvidia’s valuation.
Notably, gains in Taiwanese equities were also largely fuelled by the AI trade, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company contributing a major share of the rally.
Meanwhile, India’s equity market, which has relatively fewer AI investment opportunities and has been weighed down by weak annual earnings growth, currently has a market capitalisation of around $4.85 trillion.
Other key global equity markets with valuations lower than Nvidia’s include South Korea, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France.
The sharp rally in Nvidia shares began in late 2023, and the momentum has continued without any major pullback. During this period, the stock has surged from nearly $41 to the latest close of $215, translating into a massive gain of 424%.
The one-way rally has also sparked gains in other chip and memory stocks, helping Wall Street remain resilient even during periods of geopolitical and trade tensions.
Nvidia has transformed itself from a pure chipmaker into a foundational, system-level AI infrastructure provider, producing the graphics processing units (GPUs) required to train AI models and run large workloads.
It has since captured significant market share, enjoying elevated margins, and has even seen rental pricing for its flagship chips, such as the H100, rise sharply due to strong infrastructure monetisation demand.
AI boom powers Nvidia’s rise
Chip stocks have emerged as some of the biggest beneficiaries of aggressive spending by technology giants to scale up AI infrastructure.
Since the artificial intelligence boom was ignited by OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, Nvidia’s data centre sales have skyrocketed from about $15 billion annually to $194 billion last year.
In its recent earnings, the company once again delivered a , with net profit jumping to $58.3 billion, or $2.39 per share, during the first quarter of fiscal 2027, which ended April 26, more than tripling from $18.8 billion in the year-earlier period.
Data centre revenue, which includes Nvidia’s key graphics processing units (GPUs), hit a record $75.2 billion, up 92% from a year ago. For the current quarter, Nvidia projected revenue of $91 billion, plus or minus 2%, compared with analysts’ forecasts of $87.29 billion.
Nvidia expands footprint across AI ecosystem
Nvidia has also struck a variety of deals across the AI ecosystem. It has taken stakes in developers such as OpenAI and fellow chipmakers like Marvell Technology, aiming to fuel industry-wide growth.
The company has made a series of investments and commercial agreements across the AI infrastructure supply chain, including deals involving CoreWeave, Nebius Group, Coherent, Lumentum Holdings, and Corning.
However, the strategy has drawn criticism from some observers, who describe it as circular because Nvidia is investing in companies that also buy its chips.
Going forward, demand for chips is expected to remain strong as Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta Platforms are projected to spend more than $700 billion this year on AI infrastructure, boosting demand for chips, servers, storage, and networking equipment.
Disclaimer: We advise investors to check with certified experts before making any investment decisions.