Nvidia Corp. is within touching distance of $1 trillion market value — poised to become only the ninth firm ever to hit that milestone — as the artificial intelligence frenzy boosts demand for processors that can accelerate computing.
Shares in the Santa Clara, California-based firm soared as much as 26% after its raised sales forecast smashed expectations. The chipmaker’s market value rose by $199 billion at one point to a record $955 billion, before paring gains.
“What can we say other than just wow,” Evercore ISI analyst CJ Muse said in a note. “The obvious drivers here are accelerated computing and generative AI, but the magnitude of the beat amid supply constraints is just amazing.”
Up by $163 billion as of 9:36 a.m. in New York, Nvidia’s market value addition would rank among the biggest in US history. Apple Inc.’s $191 billion one-day pop in November and a slightly smaller surge in Amazon.com Inc. in February 2022 top the record books.
“It doesn’t happen often to see a $700 billion company move 25% in one day — I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Richard Windsor, founder of independent researcher Radio Free Mobile based in Abu Dhabi. For as long as the AI craze persists, “Nvidia is in a good position.”
A trillion dollars of data center infrastructure will be upgraded to handle so-called accelerated computing, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Jensen Huang told analysts, letting them run generative AI tools such as ChatGPT. Huang said the firm saw “incredible orders.”
Nvidia’s outlook was so strong that Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore said the numbers match what they had in mind for 2025. “The transformational surge in AI spending is paying off much earlier than expected,” he wrote in a note.
By Kurt Schussler and Henry Ren / Bloomberg
