Santa Clara-based Nvidia becomes first $5 trillion company

(AP) — Nvidia has become the first $5 trillion company, just three months after the Santa Clara-based chipmaker was first to break through the $4 trillion barrier.

Hitting the new benchmark puts more emphasis on the upheaval being unleashed by an artificial intelligence craze that’s widely viewed as the biggest tectonic shift in technology since Apple co—founder Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone 18 years ago. Apple rode the iPhone’s success to become the first publicly traded company to be valued at $1 trillion, $2 trillion and eventually, $3 trillion.

But there are concerns of a possible AI bubble, with officials at the Bank of England earlier this month flagging the growing risk that tech stock prices pumped up by the AI boom could burst. The head of the International Monetary Fund has raised a similar alarm.

The ravenous appetite for Nvidia’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023. On Wednesday the shares touched $207.86 in early morning trading with 24.3 billion shares outstanding, putting its market cap at $5.05 trillion.

In comparison, Nvidia’s value is greater than the GDP of India, Japan and the United Kingdom, according to the International Monetary Fund.

On Tuesday Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang disclosed $500 billion in chip orders. The company also announced a partnership with Uber on robotaxis and a $1 billion investment in Nokia, with the two planning to work together on 6G technology.

In addition, Nvidia is teaming with the Department of Energy to build seven new AI supercomputers.

Last month Nvidia announced that it will invest $100 billion in OpenAI as part of a partnership that will add at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia AI data centers to ramp up the computing power for the owner of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.

In August Huang said that Nvidia was discussing a potential new computer chip designed for China with the Trump administration. President Donald Trump said on Air Force One that he will speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping about Nvidia’s chips on Thursday.