Nvidia, long known in the niche gaming community for its graphics chips, is now the most valuable public company in the world.
Shares of the chipmaker climbed 3.2% in mid-day trading on Tuesday, lifting the company’s market cap to $3.33 trillion, surpassing Microsoft. Earlier this month, Nvidia hit a $3 trillion market cap for the first time, and passed Apple.
Nvidia has about 80% of the market for AI chips used in data centers, a business that’s ballooned as OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and others have raced to snap up the processors needed to build AI models and run increasingly large workloads.
For the most recent quarter, revenue in Nvidia’s data center business rose 427% from a year earlier to $22.6 billion, accounting for about 86% of the company’s total sales.
Founded in 1991, Nvidia spent its first few decades primarily as a hardware company that sold chips for gamers to run 3D titles. It’s also dabbled in cryptocurrency mining chips and cloud gaming subscriptions.
