How Jensen Huang's NVIDIA, who started with video game chips, became the world's most valuable firm, bigger than UK's GDP
, run by Jensen Huang, has become the world's most valuable company, its market capitalisation hitting $3.9 trillion. The Santa Clara-based chip designer's value now sits above the GDPs of India and Germany, both hovering near $4.19 trillion, and is closing fast on Japan's economy. Only the US and China remain ahead.
Shares rose 2.1% to $159.34 at close on Thursday, lifting Nvidia above Apple's record high market cap of $3.915 trillion, which Apple reached on 26 December 2024. Microsoft holds the second spot with $3.7 trillion, while Apple has slipped to third at $3.19 trillion.
Nvidia's gigantic rise in comparison
Nvidia's massive rise invites comparisons with entire countries. But there's a catch. A company's market value reflects how much investors believe it can earn in future, while a nation's GDP measures the total value of all goods and services produced in a year.
India's GDP, for example, covers the output of about 1.5 billion people working in farms, factories, IT services, shops and offices. Nvidia's valuation, in contrast, hinges on just 30,000 employees building high-value, cutting-edge technology for artificial intelligence.
Yet the symbolism matters. A company built to make video game cards now outvalues the economic output of countries with massive populations and diverse industries.
Live Events
Top 10 economies in 2025
Here's how Nvidia's $3.92 trillion value compares with the world's largest national economies by GDP (nominal), according to IMF and Forbes India data from mid‑2025
Rank
Country
GDP (USD trillion)
1
United States
30.51
2
China
19.23
3
Germany
4.74
4
India
4.19
5
Japan
4.19
6
United Kingdom
3.84
7
France
3.21
8
Italy
2.42
9
Canada
2.23
10
Brazil
2.13
India recently overtook the UK to claim fourth place, and is set to surpass Japan by fiscal year-end.
How Nvidia built from gaming to global AI backbone
Founded in 1993, Nvidia carved its niche by developing high-end graphics cards for video games. Those same graphics processing units (GPUs) later turned out to be perfect for complex AI workloads.
Its pivot to chips that drive artificial intelligence training has fuelled staggering growth. Back in 2021, Nvidia's market value was $500 billion — about an eighth of what it is now. In just four years, it has leapfrogged entire industries and regions.
Data from LSEG highlights that Nvidia's market cap now eclipses the combined worth of all publicly listed companies in Canada and Mexico, as well as the full UK stock market, as reported by Reuters. This scale is striking for a company that employs only about 30,000 people.
Big tech's bet keeps Nvidia at the top
The world's tech giants are competing against each other to get the AI crown. The race among Microsoft, Amazon.com, Meta Platforms , Alphabet and Tesla to build AI data centers and dominate the emerging technology has fueled insatiable demand for Nvidia's high-end processors.
Microsoft alone invested billions in OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, and pumped fresh capital into UAE's AI firm G42. Tesla, meanwhile, relies on AI models to develop its autonomous driving features. All these systems depend on Nvidia's chips.
As Reuters noted, 'Nvidia's newest chips have been instrumental in training the largest AI models, driving an insatiable demand for its products.'
A broader AI arms race
Nvidia's rise is part of a larger reshuffle in the tech hierarchy. Companies that control the AI pipeline — from chips to data centres — are now the biggest spenders and earners.
Competitors like Taiwan's TSMC and America's Broadcom are also expanding rapidly. TSMC recently secured billions in US funding to build new chip plants under the CHIPS Act, aiming to ensure America's lead in semiconductor production.
Meanwhile, Google's parent Alphabet unveiled its new quantum computing chip, Willow, to correct errors in real-time — a move that could challenge Nvidia's dominance in some advanced workloads. Meta Platforms, too, has poured billions into the AI start-up Scale AI, signalling more competition ahead.
Tariff jitters and a swift rebound
Not everything has gone Nvidia's way. This April, Wall Street took a hit when US President Donald Trump announced sweeping global tariffs. On 4 April, Nvidia's share price sank to its lowest close in months, fuelling fears about supply chain costs and trade wars.
But optimism returned just as fast. Shares have rebounded by more than 68% since that low point, boosted by expectations that fresh trade deals will help offset the tariffs.
This comeback is sharper than many analysts predicted. Even after such a dramatic rise, Nvidia's shares trade at about 32 times projected earnings for the next year — below its five-year average of 41. Analysts see this as proof that investors expect profits to keep climbing.
As AI models grow bigger and more advanced, they need more computing power — and for now, Nvidia's chips remain the gold standard. From consumer AI assistants to self-driving cars and quantum research, Nvidia's technology sits at the heart of it all.
For Wall Street, that promise is enough to stake trillions. For Nvidia, the next leap could well be to cement itself as the biggest company the world has ever seen. The company that once powered video games now powers the race for the future.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
India Today
19 minutes ago
- India Today
Microsoft shuts down Pakistan operations after 25 years amid global restructuring and layoffs
In a move that has rattled Pakistan's already fragile tech landscape, Microsoft has announced the closure of its local office, ending a 25-year presence in the country. The tech giant, as part of its global workforce reduction strategy, will now serve Pakistani clients remotely through its regional hubs and authorised resellers, rather than maintaining a direct presence on the ground. Microsoft confirmed the shift in a statement to TechCrunch, saying it reflects a model it already uses in various countries. The company was quick to assure that existing customer agreements and services will continue unaffected, and that the quality of support will remain decision, though affecting only five employees locally, has sent shockwaves through Pakistan's business and tech communities. These individuals were largely focused on enterprise sales of Microsoft services such as Azure and Office. Unlike in India, Microsoft never established a development or engineering base in Pakistan, limiting its footprint to liaison and sales operations. Still, the withdrawal is being seen as more symbolic than numerical, a troubling signal about Pakistan's appeal to international tech the move coincides with Microsoft's largest round of global job cuts, with over 9,000 positions recently being slashed worldwide. Pakistan's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has attributed the company's exit to this wider organisational restructuring. In reality, Microsoft had already been quietly transitioning core functions such as licensing and contract management to its European hub in Ireland over the past few years. Former Microsoft Pakistan country head Jawwad Rehman urged the government to take proactive steps to retain and attract global tech players. 'Even global giants like Microsoft find it unsustainable to stay,' he wrote in a candid LinkedIn post, calling on the IT ministry to initiate KPI-driven engagement strategies with multinational firms. Former President Arif Alvi also weighed in on social media, labelling Microsoft's retreat as 'a troubling sign for our economic future.' Alvi revealed that Microsoft had once considered expanding its operations in Pakistan but ultimately chose Vietnam due to the latter's greater political and economic stability. 'The opportunity was lost,' he added. The timing of Microsoft's exit has raised further eyebrows, especially as it comes just days after the government announced an ambitious initiative to provide half a million young people with global IT certifications, including those from Microsoft itself. The disconnect between policy ambition and on-ground corporate confidence has laid bare the challenges facing Pakistan's tech Google continues to invest in local educational initiatives and is even exploring Chromebook manufacturing in Pakistan, Microsoft's quiet withdrawal underscores a broader issue: Pakistan has yet to position itself as a serious player in the global tech outsourcing arena. In contrast to neighbouring India, which has built a thriving IT export economy, Pakistan's tech space is often dominated by regional players such as Huawei, with global giants remaining Pakistan eyes digital transformation, Microsoft's departure is a wake-up call, one that highlights the need for stability, clear policy direction, and stronger engagement with the global tech community.- Ends
Mint
23 minutes ago
- Mint
Nvidia beats Apple to become most valuable company ever! It's now worth more than all listed companies in UK
Jensen Huang-led Nvidia has set a new record, beating companies like Apple and Microsoft to become the most valued company in the world in history. With a staggering market cap of $3.92 trillion that it hit briefly on Thursday, Nvidia's success has peaked amid optimism at the Wall Street regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI). The company on Thursday ended trade on the stock markets with a market value of $3.89 trillion, much above Microsoft and Apple. Here is everything you need to know about Nvidia's record. The leading designer of high-end AI chips briefly beat Apple's previous record of being the most valuable company in history, when it touched a market cap of $3.915 trillion. That record was set on December 26, 2024 before being broken in a little over than six months by Nvidia. Microsoft is currently the second-most valuable company on Wall Street, with a market capitalisation of $3.7 trillion, while Apple is in the third place with a market value of $3.19 trillion. According to a report by news agency Reuters, Nvidia's growing market value is a result of Wall Street's big bets on the proliferation of generative AI technology. The Jensen Huang-led company's hardware serves as a foundation to the optimism about AI. The sharp increases in the shares of Nvidia and other Wall Street heavyweights have left people who save for their retirements through widely used S&P 500 index funds heavily exposed to the future of AI technology, Reuters reported. With the rising demand of AI, tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Tesla and Amazon are rushing to build advanced AI data centres to take a lead in emerging AI technology. This is the exact reason why Nvidia stands to gain, as demand for the company's specialised chips has risen considerably. Nvidia now accounts for 7 per cent of the S&P 500. Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Alphabet together make up 28 per cent of the index. As per the Reuters report quoting LSEG data, Nvidia is now worth more than the combined value of the Canadian and Mexican stock markets. It also has a higher market value than the total value of all publicly listed companies in the United Kingdom. The stock's recent rally comes after a slow first half of the year, when investor optimism about AI took a back seat to worries about tariffs and Trump's trade dispute with Beijing. (With inputs from Reuters)
Time of India
23 minutes ago
- Time of India
'Marking the close' explained in 5 points: Trick inside Jane Street's alleged manipulation playbook
Jane Street Group LLC, a US-based global proprietary trading powerhouse, which allegedly manipulated the Indian derivatives market, employed a strategy called 'Marking the close' on the Nifty index options. Here is a 5-point explainer on how this strategy works and why it is illegal: 1) Any option contract has an underlying stock, and its premium moves with the price of the underlying stock. For Instance, HDFC Bank's CALL option premium will rise if the stock price of HDFC Bank rises while its PUT option premium will rise with a fall in its price. 2) The logic can be extended to the index options, too. For instance, if the Nifty index moves higher, then the Nifty CALL option premium increases and the same is the case with the Bank Nifty. For index options, the underlying is the index itself, which in turn is a basket of stocks. 3) How Options premiums work Option premiums are calculated based on stock/index's current price vis-a-vis the strike price. Strike price is the price at which you exercise the option. So Premiums are high when they are at-the-money or in-the-money. -- In-the-money (ITM) call option: Current price is higher than strike price -- In-the-money put option - Current price is lower than strike price -- At-the-money (ATM) call/put option: Current price is close to strike price 4) On expiry days, OTM (Out of the Money) options are cheap because they are likely to expire worthless. ATM options are most volatile because they near the strike price and anything can happen. But for ITM options, they are fully loaded and available at a premium. Read More: Sebi may widen Jane Street probe to other indices, exchanges: Report For an options trader, the catch lies in the transition of premiums if he can buy a cheap OTM option for 50 paisa or a rupee and then watch it grow to Rs 10, 20 or even 100 in a matter of a few hours. Traders with deep pockets can make this possible and Jane Street's deep pockets seem to have that kind of money. 5) On the expiry day, you buy all the cheap Index OTM options on one hand and on the other hand, you either buy or sell the index underlying constituents to an extent where the options start to move in your favor. Sophisticated traders can do it by just buying or selling heavyweight stocks of the index. Traders can buy all the cheap options before 3 pm and after that, they can accordingly make orders worth crores of rupees in the heavyweight stocks. It can be done through algorithms which know the exact quantity, price and time, which makes computation of the expiry closing price easy, as the closing price is the weighted average of the last 30 minutes. The algorithms know the closing price which in turn makes your position favourable. Also Read: Jane Street Fallout: Zerodha's Nithin Kamath flags risk to brokers and stock exchanges Why is it illegal? Market regulator Sebi holds this as an unfair, deceptive, and manipulative practice that violates its norms. Sebi's 105-page order holds that Jane Street made unlawful gains through this. Jane Street has refuted these allegations and has said that it will engage with the regulators. ( Disclaimer : Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)
