Nvidia became the first chipmaker in history to break the $1 trillion market cap barrier, reaching $1.01 trillion as its shares continued to rise amidst the impact of widespread generative AI adoption. Nvidia shares were trading at $412.71 at the time of writing, a 6% gain over the previous day and a whopping 188% increase for the year thus far. As a result, Nvidia becomes one of just six companies with a market cap of over $1 trillion, joining Apple, Microsoft, Saudi Aramaco, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon in the elite club. Nvidia is also only the ninth company to ever break the $1 trillion mark.
Nvidia's incredible rise over the course of the year came as generative AI and large language models like ChatGPT have exploded into the mainstream, with blue-chip tech companies like Google, Meta, and Microsoft investing heavily in AI infrastructure to bulk up their AI capabilities.
Nvidia has played a pivotal role in developing the AI ecosystem of hardware and, perhaps more importantly, software powering the AI revolution. With an uncontested lead in AI hardware processing horsepower and the strength of its CUDA software programming model, Nvidia doesn't seem to have a clear opponent for its leadership position.
Nvidia further solidified its position this week at Computex 2023, unveiling a broad portfolio of new solutions to address a wide range of segments, from massive supercomputers like its DGX GH200 to a new line of reference MGX system designs that will bring AI to mainstream data centers and enterprises. Nvidia is also leveraging the fruits of its tactical purchase of Mellanox to develop its own AI-centric networking infrastructure that ties its solutions together, giving it yet another advantage over its competitors -- the ability to design tightly-coupled systems at data center scale.
For now, Nvidia's biggest problem is satisfying the explosive demand for its GPUs that has led to shortages. Still, the company has made large investments in boosting its production capacity. It is even taking more drastic steps, like courting Intel to have it manufacture its GPUs, to assure that supply constraints at its leading foundry partner TSMC don't hinder its growth.
