This surge occurred just three months after reaching the $4 trillion level.
Nvidia became the first company to reach $5 trillion in market value during a global artificial intelligence arms race.
The chipmaker’s surge on Wednesday came just three months after the company topped the $4 trillion mark.
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The milestone highlights the company’s rapid transformation from a niche graphics chip designer to a core of the global AI industry, turning CEO Jensen Huang into a Silicon Valley icon and making the company’s advanced chips a flashpoint in the technology race between the US and China.
Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, NVIDIA stock has increased 12x as the AI frenzy has pushed the S&P 500 index to record highs, sparking debate over whether the tech company’s frothy valuations could spark the next big bubble.
The new milestone exceeds the total market value of cryptocurrencies and is equivalent to about half of the Stoxx 600 index, a benchmark European stock index.
“NVIDIA’s $5 trillion market cap is more than just a milestone. It’s a declaration that NVIDIA has gone from being a chipmaker to an industry creator,” said Matt Blitzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, which owns the company’s shares.
“The market continues to underestimate the size of the opportunity, and Nvidia continues to be one of the best ways to tackle the AI subject.”
Huang on Tuesday unveiled $500 billion in orders for AI chips and said he plans to build seven supercomputers for the U.S. government.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is scheduled to discuss Nvidia’s Blackwell chip with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday. Sales of high-end chips have become a key point of contention between the two countries due to US government export restrictions.
At current prices, CEO Huang’s Nvidia stock is worth about $179.2 billion, according to regulatory filings and Reuters calculations. According to the Forbes Billionaires List, he is the 8th richest person in the world.
Mr. Huang, who was born in Taiwan and raised in the United States from the age of nine, has led Nvidia since its founding in 1993. Under his leadership, the company’s H100 and Blackwell processors became the engine behind the large language models that power tools like ChatGPT and Elon Musk’s xAI.
While Nvidia remains the clear frontrunner in the AI race, big tech companies like Apple and Microsoft have also seen their market value exceed $4 trillion in recent months.
Analysts say the rally reflects investor confidence in relentless investment in AI, but some warn that valuations may be inflated.
“The current expansion of AI relies on a small number of powerful companies financing each other’s capacity. The moment investors start demanding cash flow returns rather than capacity announcements, some of these flywheels could be seized,” said Matthew Tuttle, CEO of Tuttle Capital Management.
Nvidia is scheduled to release its quarterly results on November 19th.
regulatory pressure
The company’s dominance has drawn the scrutiny of global regulators, and U.S. restrictions on exports of advanced chips have made it a key pawn in the U.S. government’s strategy to limit access to China’s AI technology.
“It’s clear that NVIDIA brought its story to DC to educate and gain support from the U.S. government,” said Bob O’Donnell of TECHnaracy Research. “They have managed to cover most of the hottest and most influential topics in the technology industry.”
Tuesday’s developer conference also served as a platform for Huang to walk a geopolitical tightrope.
He praised President Trump’s “America First” policy to accelerate domestic technology investment, but warned that removing China from the Nvidia ecosystem could limit U.S. access to half of the world’s AI developers.
Rivals, including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and several well-funded startups, are trying to challenge NVIDIA’s dominance in high-end AI chips, but NVIDIA remains the industry’s top choice.
On Wall Street, Nvidia’s stock price is soaring. As of 10:45 a.m. New York (14:45 GMT), the stock was up 5.1% since the market open.
