(Reuters) – Nvidia shares neared record highs on Monday, putting the leading AI chipmaker on the brink of being dethroned by Apple as the world’s most valuable company.
The Santa Clara, Calif., company’s stock rose 2.8% to $138.57, just shy of its June 20 intraday high of $140.76, as investors bet on strong demand for next-generation Blackwell AI processors. It didn’t reach .
In June, Nvidia briefly became the world’s most valuable company. Overtaken by Microsoft, the tech trio’s market capitalization has been in an uphill battle for months.
Recent gains have boosted Nvidia’s market value to $3.4 trillion, just below Apple’s $3.5 trillion and ahead of Microsoft’s $3.1 trillion.
Nvidia has become Wall Street’s biggest winner in the race between Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and other big tech companies to monopolize emerging AI technologies.
“We believe that leading companies in the AI space face an investment environment characterized by a prisoner’s dilemma. Each company is individually incentivized to continue spending; The costs are (potentially) catastrophic,” TD Cowen analysts said in a report. on sunday.
TD Cowen has set a price target for Nvidia at $165, reiterating it as a “top pick.”
Apple rose 1.2%, Microsoft rose 0.9% and the S&P 500 rose 0.7% to a new record high as investors geared up for quarterly reporting season.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the contract manufacturer that makes Nvidia’s processors, is expected to report a 40% jump in quarterly profit on Thursday due to a surge in demand.
Analysts expect spending to build out AI data centers to more than double NVIDIA’s annual revenue to nearly $126 billion, according to LSEG data.
Nvidia’s stock rally has pushed the S&P 500 to a record high, but investors worry that optimism about AI could fade if there are signs that spending on AI technology is slowing. .
(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by David Gregorio)
