Nvidia ceded its spot as the world’s most valuable company to Microsoft after its stock price fell more than 3.5% on Thursday.
The artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant briefly held first place as of Tuesday, with a market valuation of $3.34 billion (£2.64 billion).
But Nvidia stock fell to $130.78 billion on Thursday, bringing its value down to about $3.22 billion, with Microsoft regaining the stock as it held above $3.3 billion.
Nvidia’s rise has been fueled by its dominance of what analysts call the “new gold or oil of the tech sector”: chips that power AI.
Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple – each worth more than $3 trillion – are in a three-way race to become the world’s most valuable company.
Even though Nvidia only reached the top spot for a brief period, some analysts predict that competition between the three tech companies will remain fierce.
“We believe that over the next year, the race for a $4 trillion market cap in the technology sector will be at the forefront between Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft,” Wedbush Securities said in a note earlier this week.
Nvidia’s stock has soared on growing demand for chips that train and run generative AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The company also benefited greatly from the Bitcoin mining rush in 2020, which saw a surge in sales of its graphics cards.
His rise has been reflected in the growing notoriety of his boss, Jensen Huang, who became famous in part thanks to his popularity in his native Taiwan, where fans treat him like a rock star.
