AI giant Nvidia becomes first company to reach $4 tn in value
"The market has an incredible certainty that AI is the future," said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers. "Nvidia is certainly the company most positioned to benefit from that gold rush."
Nvidia, led by electrical engineer Jensen Huang, now has a market value greater than the GDP of France, Britain or India, a testament to investor confidence that AI will spur a new era of robotics and automation.
The California chip company's latest surge is helping drive a recovery in the broader stock market, as Nvidia itself outperforms major indices.
Part of this is due to relief that President Donald Trump has walked back his most draconian tariffs, which pummeled global markets in early April.
Even as Trump announced new tariff actions in recent days, US stocks have stayed at lofty levels, with the tech-centered Nasdaq ending at a fresh record on Wednesday.
"You've seen the markets walk us back from a worst-case scenario in terms of tariffs," said Angelo Zino, technology analyst at CFRA Research.
While Nvidia still faces US export controls to China as well as broader tariff uncertainty, the company's deal to build AI infrastructure in Saudi Arabia during a Trump state visit in May showed a potential upside in the US president's trade policy.
"We've seen the administration using Nvidia chips as a bargaining chip," Zino said.
New advances
Nvidia's surge to $4 trillion marks a new benchmark in a fairly consistent rise over the last two years as AI enthusiasm has built.
In 2025 so far, the company's shares have risen more than 21 percent, whereas the Nasdaq has gained 6.7 percent.
Taiwan-born Huang has wowed investors with a series of advances, including its core product: graphics processing units (GPUs), key to many of the generative AI programs behind autonomous driving, robotics and other cutting-edge domains.
The company has also unveiled its Blackwell next-generation technology allowing more super processing capacity. One of its advances is "real-time digital twins," significantly speeding production development time in manufacturing, aerospace and myriad other sectors.
However, Nvidia's winning streak was challenged early in 2025 when China-based DeepSeek shook up the world of generative AI with a low-cost, high-performance model that challenged the hegemony of OpenAI and other big-spending behemoths.
Nvidia's lost some $600 billion in market valuation in a single session during this period.
Huang has welcomed DeepSeek's presence, while arguing against US export constraints.
AI race
In the most recent quarter, Nvidia reported earnings of nearly $19 billion despite a $4.5 billion hit from US export controls limiting sales of cutting-edge technology to China.
The first-quarter earnings period also revealed that momentum for AI remained strong. Many of the biggest tech companies -- Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta -- are jostling to come out on top in the multi-billion-dollar AI race.
A recent UBS survey of technology executives showed Nvidia widening its lead over rivals.
Zino said Nvidia's latest surge reflected a fuller understanding of DeepSeek, which has ultimately stimulated investment in complex reasoning models but not threatened Nvidia's business.
Nvidia is at the forefront of "AI agents," the current focus in generative AI in which machines are able to reason and infer more than in the past, he said.
"Overall the demand landscape has improved for 2026 for these more complex reasoning models," Zino said.
But the speedy growth of AI will also be a source of disruption.
Executives at Ford, JPMorgan Chase and Amazon are among those who have begun to say the "quiet part out loud," according to a Wall Street Journal report recounting recent public acknowledgment of white-collar job loss due to AI.
Shares of Nvidia closed the day at $162.88, up 1.8 percent, finishing at just under $4 trillion in market value.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mediapart
5 hours ago
- Mediapart
Pro-Palestinian convict freed by France after 41 years
The cookies and similar technologies we use on Mediapart are of different natures and allow us to pursue different purposes. Some are necessary for the functioning of the site and the mobile application (you cannot refuse them). Others are optional but help to facilitate your experience as a reader and in some way support Mediapart. You can refuse or accept them below, depending on their purpose. Do you agree that Mediapart uses cookies or similar technologies for the following purposes ? You can make your choice, for each category, by enabling or disabling the switch button. Mandatory for the operation of the site or application Subscriber login, anonymized audience measurement, sending of push notifications, tracking of failures, highlighting of our services these tools are necessary to track the activity of our services and their proper functioning. read more Here are the various cookies and similar technologies included in this category : Authentication cookies : subscriber login. : subscriber login. AT Internet : anonymized audience measurement : anonymized audience measurement Display of multimedia editorial content : videos (YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, INA), social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter), documents (Scribd, Document Cloud, Slideshare), sounds (SoundCloud, Spotify, Deezer), maps (Google Maps, Mapbox, CartoDB, uMap), infographics (Highcharts, GitHub, Datawrapper, Flourish, Infogram, ThingLink, jQuery, Google Fonts, Bootstrap), live blogs (24liveblog, CoverItLive), media integration support in Journal and Club publications (Embedly). : videos (YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, INA), social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter), documents (Scribd, Document Cloud, Slideshare), sounds (SoundCloud, Spotify, Deezer), maps (Google Maps, Mapbox, CartoDB, uMap), infographics (Highcharts, GitHub, Datawrapper, Flourish, Infogram, ThingLink, jQuery, Google Fonts, Bootstrap), live blogs (24liveblog, CoverItLive), media integration support in Journal and Club publications (Embedly). Typeform : optional questionnaires to collect readers opinions on our digital products. : optional questionnaires to collect readers opinions on our digital products. Datadog (only on the website) : technical indicators and load balancing. : technical indicators and load balancing. Selligent (only on the website) : communication with the subscriber, highlighting of services, offers and benefits. : communication with the subscriber, highlighting of services, offers and benefits. Batch (only on the app) : sending push notifications and in-app messages. : sending push notifications and in-app messages. Firebase Cloud Messaging (only on app) : required for push notifications to work on Android. : required for push notifications to work on Android. Microsoft App Center (only on app) : app update and failure tracking system. Statistics These tools allow us to collect statistics on site and mobile application traffic to understand usage, detect possible problems and optimize the ergonomics of our products. read more These are the third-party tools included in this category : AT Internet : audience measurement related to subscriber ID. : audience measurement related to subscriber ID. CrazyEggs (only on website) : customer journey analysis. : customer journey analysis. Nonli (only on website) : helps our social network team to publish our contents on social networks. : helps our social network team to publish our contents on social networks. Qiota (available only on the website) : management of the datawall system. Advertising retargeting There is no advertising on Mediapart. But we do promote our content and services on other sites and social networks. For this, we use technologies made available by some advertising companies. read more These are the third-party tools included in this category : Facebook (only on the website) : audience targeting on social networks to promote Mediapart. Content Access Management We use the Qiota service from Opper Marketing Suite to configure the activation of a datawall on certain content (available only on the website). This system, intended for non-subscribed users, requires the input of an email address to access the relevant content. By providing this information, the user consents to its collection, storage, and use for statistical purposes. In accordance with the applicable regulations, users have the right to access, rectify, and delete their data, which they can exercise by contacting dpo@ Save and close
Euronews
8 hours ago
- Euronews
ByteDance's AI robot system can fold clothes and do housework
TikTok parent company ByteDance has built a robotic system that allows bots to perform household tasks such as folding laundry and cleaning tables. The system uses artificial intelligence (AI) that allows robots to follow language commands and carry out tasks. China, where ByteDance is based, has been developing the technology at lightning speed with the development of its DeepSeek and Manus. According to chip designer Nvidia, robotics is the next phase of AI. That's because while tech companies have been trying to build a general-purpose robot for years, programming robots is difficult. However, with AI, it becomes much easier. What did ByteDance do? ByteDance built a large-scale vision-language-action (VLA) model called GR-3, which allows robots to follow natural language commands and do general tasks. GR-3 can be thought of as the brain of the robot. ByteDance used a robot called ByteMini for the experiment. After GR-3 was inserted into it, the robot could put a shirt on a hanger and place it on a clothing rack. Video by the company also shows the robot picking up household items and placing them in a designated spot. It could differentiate between sizes, successfully following commands to pick up the 'larger plate'. It also completed tasks such as cleaning up the dining table. ByteDance's Seed department, which heads the company's AI research and large language model (LLM) development, said it trained the model with image and text data and then fine-tuned it with data from humans interacting in virtual reality. It was also taught to copy the movements of real robots. ByteDance appears to be increasingly focusing on AI, launching the Seed department in 2023. The new development comes as TikTok is facing another threat of being banned in the US unless the company sells its American assets. US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick reiterated this on Thursday, saying, 'China can have a little piece or ByteDance, the current owner, can keep a little piece'. 'But basically, Americans will have control. Americans will own the technology, and Americans will control the algorithm,' Lutnick told CNBC, adding that if this doesn't happen, 'TikTok is going to go dark, and those decisions are coming very soon'.
France 24
9 hours ago
- France 24
China urges global consensus on balancing AI development, security
His remarks came just days after US President Donald Trump unveiled an aggressive low-regulation strategy aimed at cementing US dominance in the fast-moving field, promising to "remove red tape and onerous regulation" that could hinder private sector AI development. Opening the World AI Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on Saturday, Li emphasised the need for governance and open-source development, announcing the establishment of a Chinese-led body for international AI cooperation. "The risks and challenges brought by artificial intelligence have drawn widespread attention... How to find a balance between development and security urgently requires further consensus from the entire society," the premier said. Li said China would "actively promote" the development of open-source AI, adding Beijing was willing to share advances with other countries, particularly developing ones. "If we engage in technological monopolies, controls and blockage, artificial intelligence will become the preserve of a few countries and a few enterprises," he said. "Only by adhering to openness, sharing and fairness in access to intelligence can more countries and groups benefit from (AI)." The premier highlighted "insufficient supply of computing power and chips" as a bottleneck. Washington has expanded its efforts in recent years to curb exports of state-of-the-art chips to China, concerned that these can be used to advance Beijing's military systems and erode US tech dominance. For its part, China has made AI a pillar of its plans for technological self-reliance, with the government pledging a raft of measures to boost the sector. In January, Chinese startup DeepSeek unveiled an AI model that performed as well as top US systems despite using less powerful chips. 'Pet tiger cub' At a time when AI is being integrated across virtually all industries, its uses have raised major ethical questions, from the spread of misinformation to its impact on employment, or the potential loss of technological control. In a speech at WAIC on Saturday, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Geoffrey Hinton compared the situation to keeping "a very cute tiger cub as a pet". "To survive", he said, you need to ensure you can train it not to kill you when it grows up. In a video message played at the WAIC opening ceremony, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said AI governance would be "a defining test of international cooperation". The ceremony also saw the French president's AI envoy, Anne Bouverot, underscore the "an urgent need" for global action. At an AI summit in Paris in February, 58 countries including China, France and India -- as well as the European Union and African Union Commission -- called for enhanced coordination on AI governance. But the United States warned against "excessive regulation", and alongside the United Kingdom, refused to sign the summit's appeal for an "open", "inclusive" and "ethical" AI.
