At $5 trillion, Nvidia in league of its own; becomes first company to achieve market cap milestone, Huang's stake rises to $179bn

Nvidia made history on Wednesday as the first company to reach $5 trillion in market value, powered by a stunning rally that has cemented its place at the centre of the global artificial intelligence boom.

The milestone underscores the company's swift transformation from a niche graphics-chip designer into the backbone of the global AI industry, turning CEO Jensen Huang into a Silicon Valley icon and making its advanced chips a flashpoint in the tech rivalry between the US and China.

Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, Nvidia's shares have climbed 12-fold as the AI frenzy propelled the S& to record highs, igniting a debate on whether frothy tech valuations could lead to the next big bubble.

The new milestone, coming just three months after Nvidia breached the $4 trillion mark, would surpass the total cryptocurrency market value and equal roughly half the size of Europe's benchmark equities index, the Stoxx 600 index.

"Nvidia hitting a $5 trillion market cap is more than a milestone; it's a statement, as Nvidia has gone from chip maker to industry creator," said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, which holds shares in the company.

"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, California-based company rose 4.6% after a string of recent announcements solidified its dominance in the AI race.

Huang unveiled $500 billion in AI chip orders on Tuesday and said he plans to build seven supercomputers for the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is expected to discuss Nvidia's Blackwell chip with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday. Sales of the high-end chip have been a key sticking point between the two sides due to Washington's export controls.

At current prices, CEO Huang's stake in Nvidia would be worth about $179.2 billion, according to regulatory filings and Reuters calculations. He is the world's eighth-richest person, per Forbes' billionaire list.

Born in Taiwan and raised in the United States from age nine, Huang has led Nvidia since founding it in 1993. Under his leadership, the company's H100 and Blackwell processors have become the engines behind large-language models powering tools like ChatGPT and Elon Musk's xAI.

(This is a Reuters story)