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| NVIDIA: A historic leap in the world of stocks in a quarter century |
Nvidia shares surged over 4% on Wednesday, closing at a record high not seen since January. Investors remain confident in the company’s AI leadership despite mounting U.S. export restrictions on its products in China.
The stock ended the trading session at $154.31, surpassing its previous record close of $149.43 on January 6.
By the close of trading, Nvidia’s market capitalization reached $3.77 trillion, making it the most valuable company in the world—overtaking Microsoft by a narrow margin, which is also one of Nvidia’s major clients. Apple ranked third with a market cap of roughly $3 trillion.
Nvidia continues to dominate the GPU market, which powers large language models and AI systems. The sharp stock rally this year is particularly surprising given that Nvidia is effectively barred from doing business in the world’s second-largest economy.
In April, the Trump administration imposed new rules halting sales of Nvidia’s AI chip, the H20, which had been redesigned to meet earlier export restrictions.
Last month, Nvidia stated that the updated regulations would cost the company $8 billion in sales, and it wrote off $4.5 billion worth of inventory. The company no longer includes China in its sales outlook.
CEO Jensen Huang commented last month that the $50 billion Chinese market is now essentially closed to American tech companies.
Further expansion of export control laws targeting AI chips is expected soon, according to Trump administration officials.
Despite this, Nvidia’s May earnings report revealed a 69% year-over-year revenue increase, driven by a 73% rise in data center operations. Analysts forecast full-year revenue to grow 53%, nearing $200 billion, according to LSEG.
Nvidia also held its annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday, during which Huang emphasized that robotics, alongside AI, represents the company’s next major growth frontier.
