History was made Wednesday morning as Nvidia became the world's first company to cross the $5 trillion market cap threshold. Shares surged 5% to over $211 around 9:30AM ET, marking an unprecedented valuation milestone that no corporation has ever achieved. The chipmaker's meteoric rise continues to reshape the entire tech landscape, leaving even Apple trailing at $4 trillion as AI transforms global markets.
Nvidia just rewrote the rulebook on corporate valuations. The chipmaker's shares exploded past $211 Wednesday morning, propelling it to become the first company in history to breach the $5 trillion market cap barrier. It's a milestone that seemed impossible just years ago when the company was primarily known for gaming graphics cards.
The surge came after Nvidia announced a massive $1 billion investment in Nokia shares, coupled with a strategic partnership to develop "AI native" 5G-Advanced and 6G cellular networks. According to Bloomberg's reporting, the 5% jump happened within minutes of market open, sending shockwaves through trading floors worldwide.
The timing couldn't be more dramatic. Just three months ago, Nvidia briefly touched the $4 trillion mark in July, making this latest leap feel almost surreal in its speed. That's $1 trillion added in a single quarter - more than the entire market cap of most Fortune 500 companies.
Apple now finds itself playing second fiddle at $4 trillion, a position it hasn't occupied since the early days of the smartphone revolution. Behind Apple, the tech hierarchy looks familiar: Microsoft, Google's parent Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta round out the trillion-dollar club, but they're all watching Nvidia's rocket ship from a considerable distance.
What's driving this insane valuation isn't just hype - it's cold, hard economics. The Nokia deal signals Nvidia's push beyond data center chips into the massive telecommunications infrastructure market. "AI native" networks represent the next frontier, where every cell tower and base station becomes an AI processing node.
But perhaps more intriguingly, President Trump's about discussing Nvidia's Blackwell AI chips with Chinese President Xi Jinping sent another wave of buying through the stock. The Blackwell architecture represents Nvidia's most powerful AI processing platform, currently blocked from Chinese markets by export controls.
