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Nvidia Reclaims Crown as Most Valuable Company Globally, Surging Past Microsoft

In a powerful comeback to the top of Wall Street, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has officially surpassed Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) in market capitalization, reclaiming its title as the most valuable publicly traded company in the world as of Tuesday's close.

Market Cap Milestone: $3.45 Trillion and Rising

Nvidia’s stock jumped 2.99% on Tuesday to close at $141.40 per share, propelling its market capitalization to $3.45 trillion. Microsoft, despite steady gains, closed just below at $3.44 trillion, marking a narrow but symbolic shift in the tech hierarchy.

This marks the first time since January 24 that Nvidia has led the global market cap rankings, highlighting the company's meteoric rise driven by surging demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Over the past 30 days, Nvidia shares have soared nearly 24%, underlining investor confidence in its long-term potential, even amidst ongoing concerns over tariffs, export controls, and regulatory scrutiny related to its chip exports.

Explosive Growth Driven by AI Demand

Nvidia’s lead in the AI chip market has made it the linchpin of the global AI arms race. The company's data center chips, especially the H100 and upcoming B100 GPUs, are essential components powering the world's most advanced AI models.

In its most recent quarterly report, Nvidia posted:

• $44.06 billion in revenue (fiscal Q1)
• $0.96 adjusted EPS
• 69% year-over-year growth

This stunning performance is nearly unprecedented for a company already operating at trillion-dollar scale.

Big Tech firms including Microsoft, Meta, Google (Alphabet), Amazon, Oracle, and xAI (Elon Musk’s AI venture) have been buying Nvidia chips in bulk, building massive GPU clusters for training and deploying large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

Chip Rally Lifts the Market

Nvidia's surge helped ignite a broader semiconductor rally:

• Broadcom gained 3%
• Micron Technology rose 4%
• The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), a basket of leading chip stocks, advanced 2%

Investors are betting that the chip sector, particularly AI-related hardware, will remain central to tech’s future, even as some segments face pricing pressure or cyclical downturns.

From Gaming to Global Dominance

Founded in 1993 with a mission to enhance 3D gaming, Nvidia has radically evolved. Initially known for its GeForce GPUs, the company has transitioned into a computing powerhouse.

Its parallel-processing architecture, once optimized for gaming, proved ideal for scientific simulations, deep learning, and generative AI — a pivot that has turned Nvidia into the heart of the AI revolution.

Today, it dominates the market for AI accelerators, a category of processors that now powers everything from self-driving vehicles to cloud computing infrastructure.

What’s Next for Nvidia?

Looking ahead, analysts expect Nvidia’s dominance to continue as:

• Its Blackwell platform (B100 chips) begins deployment later in 2025
• AI spending accelerates across enterprise, government, and research institutions
• The global AI chip market, estimated at over $50 billion in 2024, is projected to exceed $150 billion by 2027 (Statista)

However, challenges remain. U.S. export restrictions to China, growing competition from AMD and Intel, and potential regulatory headwinds could weigh on future valuations.

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Nvidia’s ascent to the top of the corporate world reflects not just a tech rally, but a shift in the foundation of the modern economy. As artificial intelligence redefines industries, Nvidia stands at the center — not just as a hardware supplier, but as the defining tech company of the AI era.

Its comeback to the No. 1 spot is more than symbolic — it signals where the future of tech, investing, and innovation is heading.