Nvidia’s Surging Market Cap Poses Challenge to Google Parent Alphabet, Surpassing Amazon

On Tuesday, Nvidia made significant strides towards surpassing Alphabet as the third most valuable company on Wall Street, marking a historic milestone for the dominant AI chipmaker. With its market capitalization soaring above Amazon’s for the first time in twenty years, Nvidia’s ascent underscores its pivotal role in the technology sector.

Despite a slight 0.17% decline in its shares, Nvidia’s market value reached an impressive $1.78 trillion, surpassing Amazon’s $1.75 trillion valuation following a 2.15% dip in the latter’s stock. Meanwhile, Google-parent Alphabet experienced a 1.62% decrease in its stock, resulting in a market capitalization of $1.81 trillion. This shift highlights Nvidia’s robust performance and the ongoing evolution of the technology landscape, with AI integration playing a central role in shaping market dynamics.

Nvidia has been a top beneficiary of technology companies’ race to build AI into their products and services, with its graphics processors in short supply as Meta Platforms and other Big Tech companies buy billions of dollars worth of its components.

Mizuho in a client note raised its price target for Nvidia’s stock to $825 from $625 ahead of the Santa Clara, California, company’s quarterly results due on Feb. 21. The stock ended Tuesday at $721.28.Lead times for Nvidia’s top-shelf H100 processor have declined, “but overall demand far outstrips supply,” Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh wrote, adding he sees “substantial AI upside” for Nvidia, Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices.

Alphabet has put chatbot technology into its Google search engine while marketing generative AI tools to cloud customers. Its stock hit an all-time high a day before its quarterly report on Jan. 30 failed to meet investors’ high expectations and sent its shares tumbling. Alphabet’s stock remains up 4% in 2024.

Nvidia’s market capitalization briefly overtook Amazon’s on Monday, but Amazon was back on top by the end of that trading session.Widely viewed as lagging in the AI race, Apple’s stock has dropped 4% in 2024.Saudi Aramco has a $2 trillion market capitalization, although over 90% of it is closely held by the government of Saudi Arabia and less than 2% of its shares are available for trading by investors.