Thanks to AI, NVIDIA is close to surpassing Amazon in market value

The market value of the American chip maker Nvidia is close to exceeding the value of Amazon for the first time in two decades, thanks to the enthusiasm witnessed by Wall Street towards artificial intelligence, which has also pushed the chip giant to approach the market value of Alphabet, the owner of Google.

Nvidia’s market value rose 40% since the beginning of the year until the middle of the trading session on Wednesday to $1.715 trillion, about 3.0% less than Amazon’s market value of $1.767 trillion, and about 6.0% of Alphabet’s, which is estimated at $1.812 trillion, according to data from the London Stock Exchange Group.

Nvidia shares rose 1.8% to $694.48 after an optimistic report from Morgan Stanley. The company is scheduled to announce its quarterly results on February 21.

Morgan Stanley raised its target price on the stock to $750 from $603, and analyst Joseph Moore wrote in a note to clients that “demand for artificial intelligence continues to rise.”

Nvidia became the fifth largest company by market value in the American financial market after the stock price more than tripled in 2023.

Nvidia was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the technology companies’ race to integrate artificial intelligence into their products and services, as Meta and other major technology companies purchased billions of dollars’ worth of graphics processors from Nvidia.

Nvidia’s market value exceeded Amazon’s in 2002, and each was worth less than $6 billion at the time.

The market value of Microsoft, the leader in the artificial intelligence race, exceeded the value of Apple in January, becoming the largest listed company in the world. Behind the duo is the giant state oil company Saudi Aramco, followed by Alphabet and Amazon.

The market value of Saudi Aramco amounts to two trillion dollars, making it the third largest listed company in the world in terms of value, according to data from the London Stock Exchange Group. However, more than 90 percent of the company’s shares are state-owned, and less than 2.0 percent of the shares are freely traded on the stock exchange.