It’s hardly as if investors need much of an excuse to bid up AI-darlings this year, but yesterday Jensen Huang sent out a pretty big bat signal, telling an audience at the company’s GTC conference that orders for NVDA’s Blackwell and early Rubin chips were above $500 billion through 2026, while announcing a bevy of new partnerships with top companies like Palantir, CrowdStrike, and Uber.
That news helped the world’s most valuable company finish the day up 5%, leaving the chip designer with an eye-watering $4.9 trillion market cap.
Now, with Nvidia gaining once again in early trading on Wednesday — currently up 3.7% as the most heavily traded stock in the premarket session — the company has soared to new heights, as shares touched $208.45 as of 6:40 a.m. ET. With Bloomberg reporting that the company has 24.3 billion shares outstanding, that puts the chip designer’s market cap at around $5.065 trillion, making it the first company in history to cross the $5T threshold. Most people won’t consider the milestone marked officially until it holds up in normal trading or closes above the figure.
Nvidia’s ascent has been nothing short of remarkable, owing to the 2018 decision from Jensen Huang and co. to “bet the farm” on AI. As its data center revenues exploded, the company found itself with the right product, in the right place, at the right time. The company’s staggering market position saw it put up financial results that defied belief: triple-digit percentage growth, margins north of 50%, and all with a workforce the size of a small Ohio town — many of whom are now millionaires. Even being shut out of China due to simmering trade tensions hasn’t stopped the stock from soaring.
But, while Nvidia is undoubtedly the talisman of the AI trade, it’s hardly alone in profiting from it. With semiconductor giant Broadcom now worth more than $1.75 trillion itself, and given (for now) it has a more direct contribution to the AI ecosystem than Tesla, I’ve argued before that the Magnificent 7 moniker needs updating to BATMMAAN — a collection of stocks (Mag 7 + Broadcom) that are now worth ~$24 trillion collectively. For context, that’s 39% of the S&P 500’s market cap, which sat at $61 trillion yesterday.
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