Nvidia Surpasses Amazon in Value

Chipmaker Nvidia has exceeded Amazon in market value, the first time since 2002 that Nvidia is worth more after the market close.

Nvidia closed at $721.28 per share, giving it a market value of $1.78 trillion to Amazon’s $1.75 trillion market cap, CNBC reported on Tuesday (Feb. 13).

Nvidia shares are up over 246% year over year, thanks to strong demand for its server AI chips that can cost more than $20,000 each, CNBC said. Among the firms that rely on Nvidia’s chips are Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta, all of which need tens of thousands of them to run products such as artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots like ChatGPT and Copilot.

The demand for Nvidia’s chips may continue to surge as more companies look to grow their AI offerings and consumer interest in the technology increases.

For instance, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is reportedly pitching a multitrillion-dollar AI project to investors, PYMNTS reported on Sunday (Feb. 11).

Altman is aiming to raise funds for an initiative that would increase the planet’s chip-building capabilities and AI-powering abilities, PYMNTS reported, citing a Wall Street Journal report. The government of the United Arab Emirates is a potential backer for the project.

According to the WSJ, which cited sources familiar with the matter, Altman’s vision of reducing the scarcity of AI chips used to train large language models (LLMs) could mean raising between $5 trillion to $7 trillion — a value that is high above the current global semiconductor market’s worth, and even the combined market capitalizations of Apple and Microsoft.

However, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that number was likely an inflated estimate.

Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai on Monday (Feb. 12), Huang said advances in computing will keep the price tag for developing AI considerably lower, PYMNTS reported on Monday, citing a report from Bloomberg.

“You can’t assume just that you will buy more computers. You have to also assume that the computers are going to become faster and therefore the total amount that you need is not as much,” Huang said, according to Bloomberg.

Huang added he has confidence that the chip industry will reduce the cost of AI, as its components are made “faster and faster and faster.”