Nvidia stock looks to flip Apple as world’s most valuable company

Nvidia’s (NVDA) next earnings report may be over three weeks away, but the chipmaker is already on track to challenge Apple (AAPL) as the world’s most valuable company.

NVDA stock has remained relatively flat this week as tech giants kicked off earnings season.

Chip-sector investors are watching closely for signals on cloud and AI investments from Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta Platforms (META).

Ben Reitzes, a research analyst at Melius, suggested that growth in Big Tech’s cloud businesses “could drive perceptions around ‘AI ROI.’”

Reitzes highlighted Nvidia’s latest innovation, the Blackwell chip, as a major focus of tech spending.

Nvidia’s Blackwell, a breakthrough in AI processing, is designed to deliver four times faster processing than its predecessor while reducing power consumption by up to 25 times.

Nvidia recently announced that its Blackwell chips are sold out through 2025, with the bulk of orders from Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Oracle.

This booming demand poses both an opportunity and a challenge for Nvidia as it works to defend its leading position in the GPU market.

According to TechInsights data, Nvidia holds a commanding 65% of the global data center AI chip market, with Intel and AMD attempting to catch up.

Meanwhile, Nvidia supplies an estimated 70-95% of AI chips for machine learning models like ChatGPT.

Despite NVDA’s record-breaking stock performance, investors are now looking to upcoming Big Tech earnings for insights into AI demand.

If the demand exceeds expectations, Nvidia’s stock could be primed for further gains.

Nvidia and Apple: Neck and neck

NVDA stock closed at $141.25 on Oct. 29, bringing Nvidia’s market cap to $3.46 trillion—just a step away from Apple in the race for the world’s most valuable company.

Apple shares closed at $233.67 on Oct. 29, giving the iPhone maker a market cap of $3.55 trillion.

This isn’t Nvidia’s first run at the top. Just last week, the chipmaker briefly overtook Apple when its market cap hit $3.53 trillion, putting it ahead by roughly $10 billion.

Back in June, Nvidia also briefly edged out Microsoft as the most valuable company. Microsoft, now valued at $3.21 trillion, sits in a distant third.

Since its sixth stock split on June 7, NVDA shares have risen over 17%. In comparison, the Nasdaq Composite Index, heavy with tech stocks, has gained around 9% in the same timeframe.

Despite its sky-high valuation, Nvidia stock continues to attract buyers who see long-term growth potential, driven largely by the ongoing AI boom and demand for high-performance chips.

According to Bain & Co., the global market for AI products could reach nearly $1 trillion by 2027—a massive leap, with a projected growth rate of up to 55% from 2023.

Bain also notes that demand for “upstream chip components,” like those Nvidia produces, could increase by 30% or more by 2026.