The milestone, achieved on Wednesday, underscores the stunning ascent of the once-niche graphics chipmaker into the central power of the AI era — a transformation that has turned its CEO, Jensen Huang, into one of Silicon Valley’s most influential figures. Nvidia’s high-performance chips now form the backbone of AI infrastructure worldwide, from data centers to generative AI models such as ChatGPT, making them both a symbol of U.S. technological leadership and a flashpoint in its rivalry with China.
Since OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT in 2022, Nvidia’s shares have surged twelvefold, fueling record highs for the S&P 500 and intensifying debate about whether the market’s AI-driven optimism could evolve into another tech bubble. The latest surge — just three months after Nvidia crossed the $4 trillion mark — puts its valuation above the total cryptocurrency market and roughly half the size of Europe’s entire Stoxx 600 index.
“Nvidia hitting a $5 trillion market cap is more than a milestone; it’s a statement,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “The market continues to underestimate the scale of the opportunity, and Nvidia remains one of the best ways to play the AI theme.”
Shares of the Santa Clara–based firm jumped 4.6% following a wave of announcements that reinforced its dominance. Huang revealed $500 billion in AI chip orders and plans to build seven supercomputers for the U.S. government. The developments come ahead of a high-stakes meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, where Nvidia’s advanced Blackwell chip is expected to be a major discussion point amid ongoing export controls.
Huang’s Growing Fortune and Legacy
At current stock prices, Jensen Huang’s stake in Nvidia is valued at approximately $179.2 billion, making him the world’s eighth-richest person, according to Forbes. Born in Taiwan and raised in the U.S. from age nine, Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has led it ever since, steering the company through multiple tech cycles to its current dominance.
Under his leadership, Nvidia’s H100 and Blackwell processors have become essential to the computing power behind advanced language models, powering everything from OpenAI’s ChatGPT to Elon Musk’s xAI projects.
While Apple and Microsoft have also surpassed $4 trillion in recent months, Nvidia’s rise has been the fastest — and the most symbolic of the AI frenzy reshaping the global tech landscape. Yet some analysts caution that the pace of growth may not be sustainable.
“AI’s current expansion relies on a few dominant players financing each other’s capacity,” warned Matthew Tuttle, CEO of Tuttle Capital Management. “The moment investors start demanding cash-flow returns instead of capacity announcements, some of these flywheels could seize.”
A New Geopolitical Power Broker
Nvidia’s meteoric rise has also placed it squarely in the middle of global geopolitics. With Washington tightening export restrictions on advanced chips, Nvidia has become a critical player in the U.S. strategy to curb China’s access to cutting-edge AI technology.
“Nvidia clearly brought their story to D.C. to both educate and gain favor with the U.S. government,” said Bob O’Donnell, president of TECHnalysis Research. “They managed to hit most of the hottest and most influential topics in tech.”
At the company’s recent developer conference, Huang struck a careful balance — praising Trump’s “America First” policies for spurring domestic semiconductor investment, while cautioning that excluding China from Nvidia’s ecosystem could hinder U.S. access to half of the world’s AI developers.
Despite mounting competition from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and a wave of new AI chip startups, Nvidia remains firmly in control of the high-end GPU market that fuels the AI boom.
The company is set to report its next quarterly results on November 19, with investors eager to see whether Nvidia’s growth trajectory — and its role as the cornerstone of the AI revolution — can continue to defy gravity.