NEW YORK: AI chip juggernaut Nvidia became the world's first $5 trillion company on Wednesday, as investors remain confident that artificial intelligence will deliver a new wave of innovation and growth.
The California-based tech giant saw its share price rise by 4.91 percent to $210.90 at the open of trading on Wall Street, pushing Nvidia's market capitalization past the never-before-seen threshold.
The surge in the company's share price follows continued strong sales, a flurry of new deals -- including a partnership with Europe's Nokia announced on Tuesday -- as well as expectations that the company may soon regain access to China.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is expected in South Korea this week, where he will attend the sidelines of the APEC summit at which US President Donald Trump will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, with issues related to AI development expected to be discussed.
Nvidia chips are currently not sold in China due to a combination of Chinese government bans, national security concerns, and ongoing trade tensions between the United States and China.
The Trump administration favors a more nuanced approach to selling AI chips to Beijing, but faces deep skepticism from China hawks across the US political spectrum who favor tougher bans on AI technology.
Nvidia has announced a series of partnerships in recent weeks, including an intention to invest up to $100 billion in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI over the coming years.
It also said it would invest $5 billion in struggling chip rival Intel, in response to the Trump administration's desire to bring back more manufacturing of semiconductors to the United States.
Nvidia produces the advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) that power most generative AI systems, including those behind ChatGPT and other large language models.
