Int’l Desk:

Nvidia dethroned Apple as the world’s most valuable company following a record-setting rally in the stock powered by an insatiable demand for its new supercomputing artificial intelligence (AI) chips.

Nvidia’s stock market value briefly touched US$3.53 trillion, while that of Apple was US$3.52 trillion, according to data from LSEG.

In June, Nvidia briefly became the world’s most valuable company, before it was overtaken by Microsoft and Apple, reports Singapore-based Business Times.

The tech trio’s market capitalisations have been neck-and-neck for several months. Microsoft’s market value stood at US$3.2 trillion.

Nvidia’s stock has risen about 18 per cent so far in October, with a string of gains coming after OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced a funding round of US$6.6 billion. Nvidia provides chips used to train so-called foundation models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4.

“More companies are now embracing artificial intelligence in everyday tasks and demand remains strong for Nvidia chips,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

“It is certainly in a sweet spot and so long as we avoid a big economic downturn in the United States, there is a feeling that companies will continue to invest heavily in AI capabilities, creating a healthy tailwind for Nvidia.”